Group claims kidnap of French national
2012-12-24 09:39
Kaduna - Nigerian Islamist group Ansaru said on Sunday it
was behind the kidnap of a French national last week, citing France's ban on
full-face veils and its support for military action in Mali.
Ansaru sent a message to Nigerian reporters saying it was
holding 63-year-old Francis Colump, who was taken on 19 December when at least
30 gunmen attacked his residence in the remote northern town of Rimi, close to
the Niger border.
The Nigerian police declined to comment on the claim but had
already named Colump as the man abducted. He was working for French renewable
energy firm Vergnet, which had been building Nigeria's first wind farm.
"The reason we kidnapped him is ... the law the
government created which prohibits the wearing of niqab by French Muslim women.
This is a denial of their religious rights," said the statement by the
group, written in the local Hausa language.
"And again the participation of France in supporting
the military attack on Muslims in northern Mali," the message signed by
the group's purported leader Abu Usamata Ansari said.
In recent months France has led support for an African-led
force to help defeat al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants in northern Mali.
Military deployment has the backing of the UN Security Council.
Last year, France banned full face veils.
Ansaru's full name is Jama'atu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis
Sudan, which roughly translates as "Vanguards for the Protection of
Muslims in Black Africa".
The group, thought to be a breakaway from better known
Islamist sect Boko Haram, has risen to greater prominence in recent weeks.
Terror group list
It claimed responsibility for a dawn raid on a major police
station in the Nigerian capital last month, where it said hundreds of prisoners
were released.
Britain last month put Ansaru on its official
"terrorist group" list, saying it was aligned with al-Qaeda and was
behind the kidnap of a British and a Italian killed earlier this year during a
failed rescue attempt.
Ansaru is thought to have loose ties to Boko Haram, which
has killed hundreds this year in an insurgency focused mostly on Nigerian
security forces, religious targets and politicians, rather than foreigners.
Western governments are increasingly concerned about
Islamists in Nigeria linking up with groups outside the region, including al-Qaeda's
north African wing.
Colump's kidnap takes to nine the number of French citizens
currently held hostage in Africa: seven others are in the arid Sahel belt and
one in Somalia.
France's Intelligence agency said last week it believed
"terrorist" links were behind the latest abduction.
"We are informing the government of France that we
would continue to attack ... its citizens anywhere in the world as long as the
government does not retract on its policies," Ansaru's statement said.
