Sahara swallows tourists - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By CasX
#7147
During the past weeks, some tourist groups vanished in the Sahara. Last weekend, the fourth group disappeared, rising the number of vanished people up to 29.

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/226704.htm

There seems to be different ideas about what may have happened to the tourists. Here's one: (from the site)

Tourists may have been kidnapped - press

Some local press reports suggest the tourists, who were travelling in at least five separate groups, have been kidnapped, while others said US military operations in Iraq may have interfered with the travellers' satellite navigation systems.

Helicopters have been combing the two million square kilometre desert area bordering Libya and Niger in search of the tourists, who include 15 Germans, at least eight Austrians, four Swiss, and a Dutchman.

According to some reports, a Swedish national is also missing.

At the weekend, security personnel scoured the Illizi area, 1500 kilometres southeast of Algiers, near the Libyan border.

The Niger minister said Ag Boula said: "We have not been told about these tourists going missing, no European embassy has approached us."

Three groups of European tourists — six Germans, four Swiss and one Dutch — went missing in southeastern Algeria on February 21, near the border with Niger and Libya.

Tourists travelling in three vehicles

Contact was lost on March 17 with another group of six Germans, four men and two women, who were touring the southern Algerian desert in three vehicles.

The tourists have all gone missing within a huge triangle stretching from Djanet, 1700 kilometres southeast of Algiers, to Tamanrasset 1900 kilometres south of the capital, and from there 800 kilometres north to Ouargla.

They were understood to have been travelling in four-wheel drive vehicles or on motorbikes, and had arrived in Algeria from Tunisia to avoid northern danger zones where armed Islamic extremists, who launched Algeria's civil war in 1992, are known to operate.

Although the region the tourists were travelling in has largely been spared the violence that has swept most of Algeria since the authorities cancelled an election in 1992 that a Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win, an Islamic extremist group is known to operate in the Southern desert.

That group is led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who some years ago threatened the annual Paris-Dakar car rally, forcing it to change its planned route.

Reports say Belmokhtar has now joined Algeria's largest hardline Islamic insurgency, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which is linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Press reports have suggested that the missing Europeans may have been kidnapped for ransom, which would be used to fund the GSPC's violent campaign to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state in Algeria.
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By Boondock Saint
#7155
I cant see the lost angle ... I understand satellite guided equipement being effected possibly but what about good old radios? Unless people just dont carry those anymore ... but what about good old cell phones?

Kind of leads me to think of some kidnapping ring ... but without any demands made as of yet ... hmmm ... maybe ... sand sharks? :muha2:

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