Nigeria: French hostage and family in new video

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A man who appears to be a French hostage held by Islamic extremists has appeared in a video filmed three days ago, in the second recording released since he and his family were kidnapped on Feb. 19 in northern Cameroon.

The video's audio airs a man's voice that identifies himself as Tanguy Moulin-Fournier. He says that his family is being held by the Islamic radical sect known as Boko Haram which wants all its members freed, especially women and children held in Nigerian and Cameroonian custody.

Boko Haram is an Islamic extremist group that has been waging a campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria's north. They are held responsible for more than 790 deaths last year alone, and dozens more since the beginning of this year.

"We lose force (strength) every day and start to be sick; we will not stay very long like this," Moulin-Fournier says in the recording.

The family has been held hostage for 25 days, he says in a shaky voice, giving the only date indication on the recording. The family comprising of Tanguy, his brother, his wife and their four children was kidnapped outside a national park in Cameroon's Far North region.

The video was not immediately available, but a media source who viewed it says it shows the Moulin-Fournier family, including the four children. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

"They will not be able to get the seven hostages unless they free our members," one of the family's captors says in the recording, speaking in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north.

This is the second video showing the family since another video was posted on YouTube three weeks ago. But their health and spirits appear to be deteriorating.

"The living conditions are very hard," Moulin-Fournier said, "(heat), water, food, sleep, life in the desert, et cetera--conditions even more difficult for the white men that we are who are not used to the African (heat) and for the kids."

The video comes days after French foreign minister Laurent Fabius visited Nigeria and Cameroon as part of a campaign to get the hostages freed. He said that, in addition to the family of seven, extremists also hold an eighth French national who had been working on a renewable energy project in northern Nigeria. It is not clear which extremist group currently holds the French engineer kidnapped on Dec. 19.

Fabius said he had been working with Nigerian and Cameroonian authorities using an approach that he described as "determined and discrete."

The hostage situation is exacerbated by the recent killings of other foreign hostages held by a splinter group of Boko Haram.

European diplomats said those seven foreign workers who had been kidnapped from northern Nigeria on Feb. 16 had been killed by their captors after a video showing some of the corpses was made public. The killings stoked fears about the extremists' readiness to execute their captives in a country better known for quick ransom kidnappings.

However, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan told journalists Monday that all seven hostages, including two Lebanese nationals, one citizen each from the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy, and two people now believed to have been Syrian, may not be dead. Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, who visited President Jonathan in Abuja Monday, said that he still had hopes that the hostages would be freed.

"And that if they are killed," Jonathan said, "I insisted (during his meeting with Lebanese counterpart) that we must get their corpses."

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Associated Press reporters Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria and Bashir Adigun in Abuja contributed to this report.

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New hostage video, more violence from Nigeria sect

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A man who appears to be a French hostage held by Islamic extremists has appeared in a video filmed three days ago, in the second recording released since he and his family were kidnapped on Feb. 19 in northern Cameroon, as authorities fail to stop the spiraling violence of Nigeria's Boko Haram insurgency.

The video's audio airs a man's voice that identifies himself as Tanguy Moulin-Fournier. He says that his family is being held by the Islamic radical sect known as Boko Haram which wants all its members freed, especially women and children held in Nigerian and Cameroonian custody.

Boko Haram has been waging a campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria's north. They are held responsible for more than 790 deaths last year alone, and dozens more since the beginning of this year.

Two secondary schools were attacked on Monday alone, leaving a teacher dead and three girl students injured in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the sect's spiritual home, military spokesman Sagir Musa said. He blamed the Boko Haram sect and said local security forces had killed three of its members in a counterattack.

Hours later, at least one explosion hit a crowded bus park for long distance travel in the northern city of Kano. People were killed and injured, said National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Yushau Shuaib, who couldn't immediately provide a casualty figure. It was not clear if there had been one or multiple explosions, said Shuaib, or if the explosion had been an accident or a bomb. However, residents' suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram, as the blast occurred in a Christian enclave in a predominantly Muslim city.

Nigerian presidential spokesman Reuben Abati said in a statement Monday that Nigeria "will not be stampeded, for any reason whatsoever, into abandoning its unrelenting war against terrorists in the country."

However, the French hostage-taking from a neighboring country would further internationalize an insurgency which has imposed a reign of terror on northern Nigeria for more than two years.

"We lose force (strength) every day and start to be sick; we will not stay very long like this," Moulin-Fournier says in the recording.

The family has been held hostage for 25 days, he says in a shaky voice, giving the only date indication on the recording. The family comprising of Tanguy, his brother, his wife and their four children was kidnapped outside a national park in Cameroon's Far North region.

The video was not immediately available, but a media source who viewed it says it shows the Moulin-Fournier family, including the four children. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

"They will not be able to get the seven hostages unless they free our members," one of the family's captors says in the recording, speaking in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north.

This is the second video showing the family since another video was posted on YouTube three weeks ago. But their health and spirits appear to be deteriorating.

"The living conditions are very hard," Moulin-Fournier said, "(heat), water, food, sleep, life in the desert, et cetera--conditions even more difficult for the white men that we are who are not used to the African (heat) and for the kids."

The video comes days after French foreign minister Laurent Fabius visited Nigeria and Cameroon as part of a campaign to get the hostages freed. He said that, in addition to the family of seven, extremists also hold an eighth French national who had been working on a renewable energy project in northern Nigeria. It is not clear which extremist group currently holds the French engineer kidnapped on Dec. 19.

Fabius said he had been working with Nigerian and Cameroonian authorities using an approach that he described as "determined and discrete."

The hostage situation is exacerbated by the recent killings of other foreign hostages held by a splinter group of Boko Haram.

European diplomats said those seven foreign workers who had been kidnapped from northern Nigeria on Feb. 16 had been killed by their captors after a video showing some of the corpses was made public. The killings stoked fears about the extremists' readiness to execute their captives in a country better known for quick ransom kidnappings.

However, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan told journalists Monday that all seven hostages, including two Lebanese nationals, one citizen each from the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy, and two people now believed to have been Syrian, may not be dead. Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, who visited President Jonathan in Abuja Monday, said that he still had hopes that the hostages would be freed.

"And that if they are killed," Jonathan said, "I insisted (during his meeting with Lebanese counterpart) that we must get their corpses."

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Associated Press reporters Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Salisu Rabiu in Kano and Bashir Adigun in Abuja contributed to this report.

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Hostage killings a new, dangerous turn for Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (AP) — Radical Islamic fighters killed seven foreign hostages in Nigeria, European diplomats said Sunday, making it the worst such kidnapping violence in decades for a country beset by extremist guerrilla attacks.

Nigeria's police, military, domestic spy service and presidency remained silent over the killings of the construction company workers, kidnapped Feb. 16 from northern Bauchi state. The government's silence only led to more questions about the nation's continued inability to halt attacks that have seen hundreds killed in shootings, church bombings and an attack on the United Nations.

The latest victims were four Lebanese and one citizen apiece from Britain, Greece and Italy.

Britain and Italy said all seven of those taken from the Setrapo construction company compound had died at the hands of Ansaru, a previously little-known splinter group of the Islamic sect Boko Haram. Greece also confirmed one of its citizens was killed, while Lebanese authorities didn't immediately comment.

"It's an atrocious act of terrorism, against which the Italian government expresses its firmest condemnation, and which has no explanation, if not that of barbarous and blind violence," a statement from Italy's foreign ministry read. Italy also flatly denied a claim by Ansaru that the hostages were killed before or during a military operation by Nigerian and British forces, saying there was "no military intervention aimed at freeing the hostages."

Italian Premier Mario Monti identified the slain Italian hostage as Silvano Trevisan and promised Rome would use "every effort" to stop the killers. British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the killings "an act of cold-blooded murder" and identified the U.K. victim as Brendan Vaughan.

A statement from Greece's foreign ministry said authorities had already informed the hostage's family.

"We note that the terrorists never communicated or formulated demands to release the hostages," the statement read, which also denied any military raid took place.

Ansaru issued a short statement Saturday saying its fighters kidnapped the foreigners from the construction company's camp at Jama'are, a town about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Bauchi, the capital of Bauchi state. In the attack, gunmen first assaulted a local prison and burned police trucks, authorities said. Then the attackers blew up a back fence at the construction company's compound and took over, killing a guard in the process, witnesses and police said.

Local officials in Nigeria initially identified one of the hostages as a Filipino, something the Philippines government later denied.

The gunmen appeared to be organized and knew who they wanted to target, leaving the Nigerian household staff at the residence unharmed, while quickly abducting the foreigners, a witness said.

In an online statement Saturday claiming the killings, Ansaru said it killed the hostages in part because of local Nigerian journalists reporting on the arrival of British military aircraft to Bauchi. However, Ansaru's statement cited local news articles that instead said the airplanes were spotted at the international airport in Abuja, the nation's central capital about 180 miles (290 kilometers) southwest.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said Sunday the planes it flew to Abuja ferried Nigerian troops and equipment to Bamako, Mali. Nigerian soldiers have been sent to Mali to help French forces and Malian troops battle Islamic extremists there. The British military said it also transported Ghanaian soldiers to Mali the same way.

The ministry declined to comment further. Ansaru had said it believed the planes were part of a Nigerian and British rescue mission for the abducted hostages.

The U.K. has offered military support in the past in Nigeria to free hostages. In March 2012, its special forces backed a failed Nigerian military raid to free Christopher McManus, who had been abducted months earlier with Italian Franco Lamolinara from a home in Kebbi state. Both hostages were killed in that rescue attempt.

"I am grateful to the Nigerian government for their unstinting help and cooperation," Hague said in a statement, without addressing the claim that the U.K. had launched a rescue effort.

In its statement Saturday, Ansaru also blamed the killings on a pledge by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to do "everything possible" to free the hostages. Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati didn't respond to requests for comment Sunday.

While Nigerian authorities have yet to comment publicly about Ansaru's claim, it comes as the nation's security forces remain unable to stop the guerrilla campaign of bombings, shootings and kidnappings across the country's north. The majority of those attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram, an amorphous group that grew out of the remains of a sect that sparked a riot and a security crackdown in Nigeria in 2009 in which about 700 people killed.

Boko Haram has hit international targets before, including an August 2011 car bombing of the U.N. office in Abuja that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100 others. An online video also purportedly claims that Boko Haram is currently holding hostage a family of seven French tourists who were abducted from neighboring Cameroon in late February. The group is blamed for killing at least 792 people last year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

Ansaru, which analysts believe split from Boko Haram in January 2012, seems to be focusing much more on Western targets. Analysts say it has closer links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and cares more about international issues, as opposed to Boko Haram's largely local grievances. But much remains unknown about Ansaru, which so far has communicated through short, sometimes muddled online statements.

The hostage killings appear to be the worst in decades targeting foreigners working in Nigeria, an oil-rich nation that's a major crude supplier to the U.S. Most kidnappings in the country's southern oil delta see foreigners released after companies pay ransoms. The latest kidnappings in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north, however, have seen the hostages killed either by their captors or in military raids to free them, suggesting a new level of danger for expatriate workers there.

The worst violence targeting foreign workers previously in the country's history came during its 1960s civil war. In May 1969, forces with the breakaway Republic of Biafra raided a Nigerian oil field, killing 10 Italian oil workers and a Jordanian. Eighteen other foreign workers taken by Biafran soldiers faced the death penalty, but later were pardoned and released.

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Associated Press writers Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Demetris Nellas in Athens, Greece, Sylvia Hui in London and Shehu Saulawa in Bauchi, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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