ALGIERS, 16 May 2003 — The liberation by the Algerian Army of 17 European tourists in the Sahara desert is a blow to extremists who have waged war for 11 years in Algeria, but it has also placed the lives of 15 tourists still held hostage in danger. Elite Algerian troops continued searching the vast desert for the remaining adventure holiday-makers, after the 17 were freed this week in a desert gunbattle with the militants.
In the early hours of Wednesday both the Algerian and Austrian media announced that the army had rescued 10 Austrians, six Germans and one Swede from their kidnappers. All 17 tourists, some of whom went missing in the Algerian Sahara three months ago, were freed without injury, while four of their captors — the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Algeria’s largest insurgent movement - were killed in the dawn raid, media reports said.
The army, meanwhile, remained silent, fearing that trumpeting reports of the successful liberation would alert the captors of another group of 15 European hostages and effectively scupper plans to free them. A statement about the liberation of the 17 tourists was issued much later Wednesday by the army, its hand forced by the massive media coverage.
Algeria’s Interior Ministry said Wednesday the remaining hostages were being held by “a second terrorist group,” but did not provide any more details. The press in the North African country speculated yesterday that the “second terrorist group” was the self-same GSPC that had taken the other tourists hostage.
The GSPC, which is allegedly linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, is the only extremist group known to operate in southern Algeria, a region that has largely escaped the ravages of the 11-year civil war launched by radical fundamentalists intent on establishing an Islamic republic in the country. If that is the case, then an assault to free the remaining hostages - 10 Germans, four Swiss and one Dutch national - would be particularly risky because the captors, backed into a corner, could be prepared to go to extremes to defend themselves.
According to El-Watan newspaper, only four or five men are holding the remaining 15 hostages. Knowing the army is in hot pursuit of them and their hostages, they could keep the tourists constantly on the move, slipping from one hiding place to another night and day. They could ban their captives from talking or moving, or even keep them tied up.
And in a worst possible scenario they could exact revenge for the freeing of the other hostages on those still being held, the Algerian press warned. The 17 freed hostages returned home Wednesday to emotional reunions with waiting family members. Gerhard Wintersteller, an Austrian among the 17 tourists freed by the army, said that group’s captors had kept them on the move in order to stay ahead of pursuing soldiers.
