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From CanWest News Service:
...and from Reuters:
And the Google English version (from the Arabic version) in el Khabar - note what appears to be Algerian security forces/commandos being sent to nearby foreign embassies to beef up security:
A second video of two Canadian diplomats and their driver who were kidnapped in Niger in December has been passed to the Canadian and Malian authorities, a Malian source said Thursday.
"A second cassette showing this time not only the two Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler, the UN Secretary General's special envoy to Niger, and Louis Gay but also their driver (Soumana Moukaila) exists," the source said.
The source, who previously revealed the existence of the first video, said he had viewed the tape in which Fowler was seen speaking French.
Moukaila's family had also seen the tape, he added.
Earlier this week the same source said that an Algerian leader of Al-Qaeda's North African branch was holding the two Canadians as well as four European tourists who were kidnapped on the Mali-Niger border last month.
The hostages were in the hands of Moctar Ben Moctar, one of the leaders of al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb in the southern region....
...and from Reuters:
Al Qaeda's North African arm has demanded 20 of its members be released from detention in Mali and other countries as a condition for releasing six Western hostages, an Algerian newspaper reported on Saturday.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has said it is holding two Canadian diplomats seized in Niger in December, including the U.N. special representative to the West African country, and four European tourists kidnapped nearby in Mali in January.
Algerian newspaper el Khabar quoted unnamed Algerian security officials as saying al Qaeda had demanded 20 Algerian, Mauritanian and Moroccan members detained in Mali and elsewhere be freed as a condition for releasing the Western hostages.
The newspaper said middlemen had met an al Qaeda leader, Yahia Djouadi, at an unspecified location in Mali in an attempt to check the six hostages were all in good health and were all indeed being held by Djouadi's militants, after some media reports that they were being held by a different cell.
Djouadi, sometimes written 'Jawadi', has been identified by U.S. officials as one of the Algerian leaders of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which was formerly known as the Group for Salafist Preaching and Combat (GSPC)....
And the Google English version (from the Arabic version) in el Khabar - note what appears to be Algerian security forces/commandos being sent to nearby foreign embassies to beef up security:
....Informed source revealed part of the conditions of al-Qaeda in exchange for the release of Western hostages held by the six, where he requested the release of 20 detainees from the nationalities of his followers came from the Algerian, Moroccan and Mauritanian. According to the same source for the''News''that the Algerian authorities have sent a few days ago, additional security elements from the Special Force of the Directorate of Information and Security, to Mali, Mauritania, Niger, within the action plan to strengthen security in the Sahel countries embassies. The official declined to a security source, the link between this action and the forthcoming presidential elections. The elements are known for their high combat efficiency, and trained to respond to the hijacking of aircraft, in the embassies of Algeria states: Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso....