N. African al-Qaida Warns EU States against Hostage Rescue Bid

Al-Qaida's north African branch warned European states including France Thursday against a military bid to rescue hostages kidnapped in Mali, citing "information" of plans for such an operation.

"We send a warning to France, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden: if they authorize this operation it will mean the death of their nationals and amount to an attempt on their lives," it said in a statement in Arabic.

"According to information we have received, the alliance of crusaders led by France which supports certain regimes like those of Algeria and Mauritania, is preparing an imminent military operation to free their hostages."

The statement was emailed to Agence France Presse in Rabat and carried by the ANI news agency in Mauritania which has published several AQIM statements in the past. These have never been disclaimed.

"We would like to state that we are searching a peaceful solution to this issue of the hostages," it added.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has claimed the kidnapping last November of two Frenchmen in the northern Malian town of Hombori, and another three Westerners a day later in Timbuktu, also in the north of the West African nation.

Frenchmen Philippe Verdon and Serge Lazarevic, who described themselves as a geologist and an engineer but were later identified as having had ties with mercenaries, were taken from their hotel in the middle of the night.

A day later, an armed gang snatched a Swede, a Dutchman and a man with dual British-South African nationality from a restaurant on Timbuktu's central square and killed a German with them who tried to resist.

Twelve Europeans, including six French nationals, are being held hostage in the Sahel strip of northwest African nations on the southern edge of the Sahara.

This zone is difficult to patrol and monitor and AQIM has carried out many attacks on troops, kidnappings of Westerners and trafficking of various kinds, including drugs.

The group was started in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists who sought the overthrow of the Algerian government to be replaced with Islamic rule.

AQIM was linked to al-Qaida in 2006.

On December 9, the organization published two photos of hostages surrounded by armed men.

One photo was of the Lazarevic and Verdon, while the other showed the three snatched from Timbuktu.

A previously unknown al-Qaida splinter group calling itself the Movement for Monotheism and Jihad in West Africa, has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of two Spaniards and an Italian in October from a camp for Sahrawi refugees near Tindouf in southern Algeria.

Mali is grappling with the return of thousands of heavily armed fighters who served fallen Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.