NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Three Spanish aid workers may have been kidnapped by al-Qaida followers in the west African country of Mauritania, the Spanish interior minister said Monday.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said "everything points" to al-Qaida being responsible for the kidnapping, a senior aide traveling with Rubalcaba told CNN.
While saying he wasn't absolutely certain al-Qaida was behind the abductions, Rubalcaba said he was concerned that "we are facing a kidnapping by Islamic radicals," his aide said.
The three aid workers from the Barcelona Solidarity Action humanitarian organization were traveling in a car Sunday that became separated from the rest of a 13-vehicle aid convoy for "unknown reasons," Spanish officials said. The convoy was traveling from Mauritania southward toward Dakar, Senegal, Spain's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday.
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.
The ministry said it could not confirm Spanish news reports said the vehicle carrying the abducted aid workers was the last in the convoy and that valuables were inside the vehicle. The news reports said the assailants were armed, which CNN said the ministry also could not confirm.
