Niamey, 13 Jan-(ANA)-Niger President Mamadou Tandja has said that investigations have shown that "terrorists" have kidnapped a Canadian U.N. envoy and his aide who went missing in the West African state a month ago.
A senior Niger intelligence official said this included the possibility that "armed Islamist groups" might be holding envoy Robert Fowler and his aide Louis Guay, whose empty vehicle was found abandoned outside Niger's capital Niamey on Dec 14.
Their local driver was also missing, in what Niger authorities are treating as a kidnap case.
"All the investigations carried out lead us to believe that they are hostages of terrorist groups," Tandja said in a meeting with the diplomatic corps in Niamey.
It was the president's first public statement on the disappearance of Fowler, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations who was serving as special U.N. envoy to Niger.
Tandja made clear he believed the possible suspects in the kidnapping included Tuareg rebels who for nearly two years have fought an insurgency mostly in the uranium-producing desert north of this former French colony in Africa's Sahel.(ANA)
US/Colombia Uni/Protest