Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service 

Published: Tuesday, February 17, 2009

UNITED NATIONS -- Suspected kidnappers of two Canadian diplomats on a United Nations mission to Niger have set a "prisoner exchange" as a condition for their release, Canwest News Service has learned.

This emerges as al-Qaeda's wing in North Africa Tuesday claimed responsibility for holding Robert Fowler and his Foreign Affairs aide Louis Guay -- as well as four Western tourists kidnapped in Niger's neighbour Mali, near the border between the two countries.

The "prisoner exchange" demand has complicated efforts to free the Canadians, who disappeared Dec. 14 along with their locally hired driver, Soumana Mounkaila.

Neither Canada nor the UN would have control over any prisoners the kidnappers might seek in the region.

As such, officials assigned to the search for the trio fear the quest for a resolution will be lengthy, sources said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.

The search for Messrs. Fowler and Guay extended some weeks ago into Mali which, like Niger, has been battling various rebel factions of the regionally dispersed Tuareg nomads.

But Mali last year also saw the North African al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) hold two Austrian tourists on its soil for months.

While the Austrians were released in October after AQIM demanded an $8-million ransom, the four additional Western tourists AQIM now says it is holding -- they are two Swiss, a German and a Briton -- were kidnapped in January.

"We are glad to bring good tidings to our Islamic nation about the success of the mujahedeen in carrying out two quality operations in Niger," a Maghreb Qaida spokesman said on an audio recording aired by the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television.

The spokesman said militants "reserved the right to deal with the six captives under Islamic sharia (law)," and added the group would soon announce its conditions.

Canada has said consistently it will not comment on whom it thinks may be holding the men, or issue any other information about efforts to win the men's release.

To analysts, the al-Qaeda reference to applying sharia law is tantamount to a threat the hostages will be killed if the group's conditions are not met.

Algerian-based AQIM have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in recent years, and a number of its members are jailed in Algeria and Tunisia.

Identification of the prisoner-exchange demand comes after Agence France-Presse reported from Mali Feb. 7 that Fowler and Guay appear on a videocassette now in the hands of Canadian authorities.

In the video, Mr. Fowler is seen asking for a response to unspecified demands of his armed kidnappers, AFP says, citing a northern Malian "elder" and another Malian source who had seen it.

While public knowledge of the videocassette came only after the AFP report, it was "sent" within days of the trio's disappearance, Canwest News Service has additionally learned.

Curiously, within a day of the kidnapping, a splinter group of the main Tuareg rebel group in Niger said it had snatched the men -- but withdrew the claim the next day.

Then, towards the end of January, Canadian investigators visited northern Mali elders, AFP reported.

Significantly, Malian elders were central to helping Austrian authorities reclaim their nationals, a source with knowledge of that investigation told Canwest News Service.

They "put pressure on" AQIM as the terrorist group held the tourists in Mali after snatching them in Tunis in February 2008, the source said.

In Niger, the government of President Mamadou Tandja has a public policy of not endorsing any talks with Niger-based Tuareg rebels, who demand up to 30% of revenues from uranium mining in traditional Tuareg lands in northern Niger.

In Mali, meanwhile, the defence ministry announced Feb. 11 it had routed a faction of the Tuareg rebels on Malian soil that had refused to take part in an Algerian-brokered peace process.

In that operation, Mali said it took 22 Tuareg rebels prisoner.

The UN publicly confirmed last week that Canada had received the video showing Fowler and Guay, but added that UN investigators had at that point not received a copy.

"We have not seen it, but we have been told about it," spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters at the daily UN media briefing.

The UN officially holds the lead in the investigation because all three men represented the UN.

Mr. Fowler, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, was a UN envoy charged with trying to find avenues for peace against the backdrop of the rising Tuareg rebellion.

Mr. Guay, a veteran Foreign Affairs officer, was his aide. Mounkaila was a driver for the UN Development Program in Niger.

The trio's UN-marked vehicle was found abandoned Dec. 15 along the road they were taking to return, the day before, to the Niger capital of Niamey after they had visited a Canadian-run gold mine in the reputedly safe southwestern part of the country.

Canwest News Service