Extremists kidnap Int'l Red Cross staff in north Mali

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) - An Islamic extremist group connected to al-Qaida's North Africa branch has claimed responsibility for kidnapping three International Committee of the Red Cross staffers, said a Tuareg separatist who is in contact with the group.

Before the kidnapping, French forces stopped the International Red Cross team near Abeibara over the weekend, and detained the group's guide and apprentice, both of them Tuareg, said the separatist. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't permitted to speak to the media on the matter.

Islamic extremist group Ansar Dine later kidnapped the three international Red Cross staffers near Kidal in north Mali, he said. The group has now said that if the guide and apprentice are freed, they will free the three staffers, he said.

Further details weren't immediately provided about the guide and the apprentice.

Valery Mbaoh Nana, international Red Cross spokesman in Bamako, said the organization hasn't received such a claim, or demands. The workers disappeared Saturday while returning to the northern city of Kidal from the village of Abeibara, where they had been distributing water. The Red Cross didn't disclose their nationalities, but said they were all African.

ICRC's director of operations, Dominik Stillhart, tweeted Monday that three "colleagues" were being held in Mali. He didn't specify by whom, but said the ICRC "will spare no effort to get them back as soon as possible."

Ansar Dine is led by a Tuareg, Iyad Ag Ghali, a native of the Kidal region. The extremist group emerged in 2012 as a religious alternative to the largely secular Tuareg separatists operating in northern Mali. Ansar Dine allied itself with al-Qaida and took over much of Mali's north before France led a military intervention in 2013.

___

AP writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.