Spain Might Pay Al-Qaeda $13 Million
Fox News reports that Spain might pay Al-Qaeda a $13 million ransom to secure the release of two of its citizens:
EXCLUSIVE: Spain is preparing to pay nearly $13 million for the release of two of its citizens who are being held by Al Qaeda’s North African wing, Fox News has learned.
Sources familiar with the negotiations tell Fox News that a deal is being brokered between Spain and Al Qaeda in the Magreb, with the Mauritanian government, to free Albert Vilalta, 35, and Roque Pascual, 50, two aid workers with Solidarity Action who were kidnapped and turned over to the extremist group Al Qaeda in Magreb in 2009.
Vilalta and Pascual, along with Alicia Gamez, 39, were kidnapped in Mauritania last November as their convoy was headed to Senegal. Gamez, the only female, was released in March. The two men are believed to be being held in an undisclosed location in the Sahara desert.
The negotiations come as Omar Sid-Ahmed Ould Hamma, 52, nicknamed Omar Sahraoui, who was convicted in July by a Mauritanian judge for facilitating the kidnapping, was extradited from Mauritania to Mali on Monday.
Sources say in an unfortunate turn of events he will eventually be handed back over to Al Qaeda in the Magreb.
Al Qaeda in the Magreb is responsible for other western kidnappings, which has raised its international profile. It is also responsible for the murder of a 78-year-old French hostage last month after French and Mauritanian forces made a failed rescue attempt.
