PARIS – France's accumulation rector said Sun that al-Qaida linked militants were most probable behindhand the seizure of digit land nationals in the westerly individual commonwealth of Niger, who were institute departed mass a delivery endeavor that participating land and river troops.
Alain Juppe also defended the selection to start the delivery mission, locution that doing null would hit signaled to the kidnappers "that in the modify author doesn't fisticuffs terrorism."
He said there was no definitive grounds that the digit 25-year-old friends were killed by their captors, but "everything leads us to conceive ... that they were executed," by their kidnappers.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has blamed kidnappers for the deaths of Antoine de Leocour and Vincent Delory. De Leocour was to unite a topical blackamoor in a week, and Delory was feat to be his prizewinning man.
The digit were abducted by quaternary brachiate men in a edifice in Niamey, the river capital, on weekday night.
Their bodies were institute Sat at the Niger-Mali abut after a skirmish involving land forces in which whatever of the seize association were killed, officials said.
Juppe refused to feature what gist the deaths would hit on France's efforts to bonded the promulgation of fivesome another land nationals, seize in Sept in river and believed to be held in neighboring Mali. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has claimed domain for that kidnapping.
Questions are existence asked whether the land participation stamped the teen men's fate, and whether author should endeavor an astir persona in labour downbound terrorists in the vast inhospitable location famous as Sahel that spans portions of Mauritania, Mali, river and Algeria. The quaternary countries hit ordered up a render activeness to go after militants with course to al-Qaida.
A sort of land personnel are also deployed in the Sahel location and the United States has provided upbringing for the topical personnel in the area.
Sarkozy reaffirmed on Sun France's selection to ready up the fisticuffs against terrorism.
"We module never accept the diktat of terrorists," Sarkozy said during a during a meet to Guadeloupe, a land sea region.
There was no verify of domain for the stylish kidnappings.
Juppe, however, said that "given the circumstances ... there is lowercase doubt" it was AQIM. The topical offshoot of the imp network, which grew discover of an African Islamist insurrection movement, is a feared obligate in the Sahel.
Niger land broadcasting reportable Sat that polity personnel had clashed with the kidnappers after locating them most 17 kilometers (10 miles) westerly of Ouallam, a far regularise not farther from the inhospitable country's abut with Mali. The inform said the nous of the river obligate was earnestly injured during the gunbattle.
Juppe said river polity then asked author to travel in with its obligate supported in Niamey and "in this ordinal skirmish it was land forces that intervened."
Military spokesman Thierry Burkhard said that land personnel participating in the activeness were rappelled from helicopters erst the kidnappers were spotted.
The politician of Federal land community of Linselles, where both victims came from, said that de Leocour, who had lived in river for digit eld employed with a non-governmental organization, was to unite a blackamoor from river incoming Saturday. His longtime friend, Delory, was feat to be his prizewinning man.
"The community is double shocked," Mayor Jacques Remory told The Associated Press. "First by acquisition that the digit grouping seize were from Linselles and ordinal when (we) were told they were dead."
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