YAOUNDE/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Feb 21, (RTRS): Nigerian security forces surrounded the kidnappers of a French family in northeast Borno state on Thursday in an operation to rescue the hostages, a Nigerian military source said.
French, Nigerian and Cameroonian officials earlier denied French media reports that the family, who were seized in Cameroon and takenn over the border, had been freed.
The Nigerian military located the hostages and kidnappers between Dikwa and Ngala in the far northeast, the military source in Borno said, asking not to be identified.
Dikwa is less than 80 kms (50 miles) from the border with Cameroon where the three adults and four children were taken hostage on Tuesday.
A senior Cameroonian military official declined to comment saying the matter was too sensitive.
Citing a Cameroon army officer, French media reported earlier on Thursday that the hostages had been found alive in a house in northern Nigeria.
“This is a crazy rumour that we cannot confirm. We do not know where is it coming from,” Cameroon Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary told Reuters by telephone from the capital Yaounde.
“What is certain is that the French tourists who were abducted are no longer on our territory. However, we are in touch with the Government of Nigeria to intensify measures to continue the search for them along our common border,” he said.
French gendarmes backed by special forces arrived in northern Cameroon on Wednesday to help locate the family, a local governor and French defence ministry official said.
Nigerian military spokesman Sagir Musa earlier also said the report on France’s BFM television of the hostages being released was “not true,” while Didier Le Bret, the head of the French foreign ministry’s crisis centre, said the information was “baseless.”
The abduction was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony.
But the region — like others in West and North Africa with porous borders — is considered within the operational sphere of Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.
Meanwhile, seven French hostages abducted by suspected Nigerian Islamist militants have probably been separated into two groups and efforts are continuing to locate them, French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday.
French, Nigerian and Cameroonian officials earlier denied French media reports that the seven family members, who were seized in Cameroon on Tuesday and taken over the border, had been freed.
“It’s best to work discreetly for now to identify the exact place where our citizens are being held — most likely in two groups — and work out how we can free them under the best conditions,” Hollande told reporters.
Paris was “fully cooperating” with Nigeria and Cameroon, he added, noting that French troops were nearby as their base was in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, 150 kms (93 miles) away.
The Nigerian military located the hostages and kidnappers between Dikwa and Ngala in the far northeast, a Nigerian military source in Borno said earlier on Thursday, asking not to be identified.
Dikwa is less than 80 kms (50 miles) from the border with Cameroon where the three adults and four children were taken hostage on Tuesday.
A senior Cameroonian military official declined to comment, saying the matter was too sensitive.
French gendarmes backed by special forces arrived in northern Cameroon on Wednesday to help locate the family, a local governor and French defence ministry official said.
Citing a Cameroon army officer, French media reported earlier on Thursday that the hostages had been found alive in a house in northern Nigeria. That was denied by the France, Nigeria and Cameroon.
In other news, Nigeria’s secret service say they have arrested a “terrorist cell” trained in Iran who planned to attack US and Israeli targets in Africa’s most populous nation.
The State Security Service (SSS) said they arrested Abdullahi Mustapha Berende and two other Nigerians in December after Berende made several suspicious trips to Iran where he interacted with Iranians in a “high profile terrorist network”.
“His Iranian sponsors requested that he identifies and gathers intelligence on public places and prominent hotels frequented by Americans and Israelis to facilitate attacks,” SSS spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar said in a statement.
“There is conclusive evidence that Berende in collaboration with his Iranian handlers were involved in grievous crimes against the national security of this country.”
Iran has yet to respond to the allegations.
Berende, who will now be charged in court, admitted spying for Iranian counterparts to reporters on Wednesday.
“As for surveillance, that one is true ... It is a regrettable phenomenon I shouldn’t be proud of it,” he said as he was paraded by the SSS in their Abuja offices.
He received $30,000 to carry out operations, the SSS said.
This is not the first diplomatic incident between Nigeria and Iran. An Iranian diplomat was arrested in 2004 on suspicion of spying on the Israeli embassy in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, Israeli sources said. Iran denied any arrest.
In 2010, authorities at a Lagos port found a hidden shipment of artillery rockets, rifle rounds and other weapons from Iran. The shipment was supposedly bound for Gambia. A Nigerian and an Iranian face criminal charges over the shipment.
Tehran has previously denied any involvement in bomb attacks against Israeli embassy targets in India and Thailand in February last year and dismissed accusations it was involved in a bombing in Bulgaria that killed seven Israeli tourists last July.
Iran has accused Israeli and Western agents of sabotaging its disputed nuclear programme, including the assassination of several of its scientists. The Iranians deny that the sabotage has significantly set back their nuclear programme.
Berende first travelled to Iran in 2006 where he studied at an Islamic university, before returning in 2011 for weapons and explosives training, the SSS said.
Ogar said Berende sent his Iranian partners photos of the Israeli cultural centre in Lagos and told them that they should attack former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida and Islamic spiritual leader the Sultan of Sokoto to “unsettle the West”.
Nigeria’s population of 160 million is split roughly equally between a mostly Muslim north and a largely Christian south.
Islamist groups in the north have become the biggest threat to stability in Africa’s top oil producer. Western governments are increasingly concerned they are linking up with extremists outside Nigeria, including al-Qaeda’s north African wing.