ALGIERS
A team of French intelligence officers arrived in Algiers on Thursday to follow up on investigations by Algerian authorities into the recent murder of a French hostage by a local militant group, a security source has said.
"Five French intelligence officers arrived in Algiers within the context of cooperation between the two countries on the murder of hostage Herve Pierre Gourdel by a terrorist group," the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Anadolu Agency.
The French team will be briefed on the outcome of investigations conducted by Algerian security agencies and subsequent attempts to track down the perpetrators, he said.
Earlier this week, the self-styled "Jund al-Khilifa" group released a video purporting to show the beheading of Gourdel, who was abducted on Sunday in Algeria's northeastern Kabylie region.
The video, entitled "Blood Message," shows Gourdel kneeling before four armed men with his hands bound behind his back and staring at the ground as his captors announce his imminent execution.
They then wrestle him to the ground and place a knife to his throat. The video then cuts to an image of Gourdel's decapitated body and shows his killers holding his severed head.
The same group issued a video earlier threatening to execute Gourdel within 24 hours if French President Francois Hollande failed to halt U.S.-led military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group.
A security source told AA that the Algerian authorities had identified Ismail Ould Makni – a 34-year-old Mauritanian national wanted by Algeria for allegedly joining Al-Qaeda in 2006 – as one of Gourdel's kidnappers.
Earlier this year, Jund al-Khilifa broke away from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), pledging allegiance instead to the ISIL, which recently captured large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. is currently attempting to drum up international support for a proposed military campaign against the militant group in both countries.
Last Friday, France began carrying out airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq.
By Ahmed Aziz
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en
