French hostage escapes from rebels in Somalia
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - One of two French security advisers kidnapped by insurgents in Somalia last month escaped on Wednesday and fled to the presidential palace in Mogadishu.
Police said the former hostage killed three of his captors but Marc Aubriere denied killing anyone and said he slipped away while his guards were sleeping.
Militants had seized the Frenchmen at a hotel in the capital on July 14 and handed one to the Hizbul Islam rebels and the other to fighters from the al Shabaab group, which Washington describes as al Qaeda's proxy in the Horn of Africa state.
Al Shabaab militants said they had later taken custody of both men, although that could not be confirmed. Somali government officials at the city's hilltop Villa Somalia palace said the man who escaped was in good health.
"We understand he killed three al Shabaab guys who were guarding him. I cannot understand how this good story happened but now he is in the hands of the government," Abdiqadir Odweyne, a senior police commander, told Reuters.
Somalia's fragile U.N.-backed government faces a stubborn insurgency mounted by al Shabaab and others. They have been joined by foreign jihadists and militants who Western security agencies say are using the country as a safe haven to plot attacks in the region and beyond.
An al Shabaab source confirmed three of its members were killed, but said it was not known by whom, "Three of my friends died but who killed them is the question. We were expecting a ransom this morning," the rebel source said.
One associate of the kidnappers said the Frenchman had been freed after talks with Somali elders, and a senior Somali government source said a ransom had been paid for his release.
"Of course I feel better than one day ago," Aubriere told the BBC Somali Service. "I'm happy and I will soon see my family ... the guards were very tired and sleepy. I didn't kill anyone or injure anyone while escaping," he said.
Adding to the confusion over who was holding the pair captive, Aubriere and the French Foreign Ministry said he had escaped the clutches of Hizbul Islam.
KIDNAPPINGS COMMON
"Contrary to certain allegations and rumours, this occurred without violence and France did not pay any ransom. The second hostage is still being held," the ministry said in a statement.
A spokesman for African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu said the Frenchman had been transferred from the palace to their base and had then boarded a flight to neighbouring Kenya.
A Somali government official and some media said last month that the two Frenchmen had been posing as journalists. Paris has denied that, saying they were on official government business.
Mogadishu is one of the world's most dangerous cities and has a history of kidnappings of foreigners, mainly aid workers and journalists. Hostages have normally been released for substantial ransom payments after days or weeks in captivity.
This month, Somali gunmen freed two Kenyans, two French nationals, a Bulgarian and a Belgian abducted in November.
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's administration controls only small parts of the lawless country's central region and a few districts of bomb-blasted Mogadishu.
Underlining the insecurity, police said 12 people were killed on Wednesday as guards from the agriculture ministry battled other government forces near the city's K4 junction.
Violence has killed more than 18,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.4 million from their homes.
That has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies, with the number of people needing aid leaping 17.5 percent in a year to 3.76 million or half the population.
Three-quarters of those in the most need are concentrated in central and southern regions where the fighting is heaviest and aid workers have the least access.
(Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed, Mohamed Ahmed, Abdiaziz Hassan, Abdi Guled and Sahra Abdi in Nairobi and Tamora Vidaillet in Paris; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Daniel Wallis)