New AQIM abduction cases
In mid-December 2008, UN special envoy to Niger, Robert Fowler, and his aide, Louis Guay, mysteriously disappeared while on a field trip. The fate of the two Canadians long remained shrouded in uncertainty. A Nigerian Tuareg rebel group first claimed responsibility for their abduction, but this claim was quickly retracted. In early February Canadian authorities received a video tape from unknown sources which confirmed the two diplomats were still alive, and demanded a prisoner swap for their release. Last Wednesday, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb released an online statement in which it claimed responsibility not only for the abduction of Fowler and Guay, but also that of four European tourists who disappeared from the Mali-Niger border area in late January. The latest statement is brief and raises as many questions as it answers. It names and depicts the four tourists (one Briton, one German and two Swiss), but offers no