PARIS — The men responsible for the kidnapping Wednesday of a French citizen in northern Nigeria are believed to be linked to Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate or other radical Islamist groups in northern Mali, French officials said Friday.
The man, an engineer working for a French renewable-energy contractor, was seized by a large group of armed men on Wednesday night in the town of Rimi, near the border with Niger. A guard and another man at the engineer’s residence were killed.
A spokesman for the contractor, Vergnet, confirmed the kidnapping. The company is constructing a wind farm in the area.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the kidnapping, but the French president, François Hollande, said Friday morning that the “powerfully armed” attackers were “without doubt” linked to the groups in Mali. As many as perhaps 30 men were involved in the attack, according to news reports citing local officials. A Qaeda-linked terrorist group, Boko Haram, operates in northern Nigeria and is said to maintain ties to Islamists in Mali, but radical groups also operate in Niger.
The kidnapping came just a day before the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution, sponsored by France, calling for a military intervention in Mali to seize control from the radical groups that have taken control of the vast desert in the north.
Numerous Europeans have been kidnapped by or on behalf of radical Islamist groups in West Africa in recent years, and before the kidnapping on Wednesday seven French citizens were being held by jihadist fighters there. The groups depend heavily upon the payment of ransoms for their financing, analysts say.
“We need to be firm with regards to terrorism, while at the same time maintaining contacts” with terrorist groups to negotiate the freeing of hostages, Mr. Hollande told Europe 1 radio.
France is concerned about the threats to regional stability and its economic interests in western and northern Africa, but also about the potential for terrorist attacks on its own soil. French officials have been at the fore of international efforts to organize the military intervention in northern Mali, which was approved unanimously by the Security Council on Thursday. Combat operations are not expected to begin before the summer, however.
Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is believed to have extracted at least $90 million in ransom payments for the freeing of hostages over the past decade.
France Suspects Islamists in a Kidnapping
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France Suspects Islamists in a Kidnapping
