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M. Continuo

Austrian hostage captors extend deadline


    LONDON (Reuters) - The al Qaeda group holding two Austrian hostages in the Sahara has extended by two weeks its deadline for the Austrian government to meet its demands, a service which monitors Islamist Internet forums said on Monday.

    The SITE Intelligence Group said Al Qaeda in the IslamicMaghreb extended the deadline until April 6, adding that it wasa final ultimatum.

    Austrian diplomats have spent a week in Mali trying tosecure the release of Andrea Kloiber, 43, and Wolfgang Ebner,51, thought to be at an Islamist hideout in the Kidal region ofremote northern Mali near the Algerian and Niger borders .

    The group has demanded freedom for 10 militants held inAlgeria and Tunisia in return for releasing the pair. Algeriansecurity sources have said captors also demanded a ransom.

    If the demands were not met before the new deadline, "wewill have exhausted what we could bear", SITE quoted thecaptors as saying in a statement issued on Islamist InternetWeb sites.

    "Let Austria, Tunisia and Algeria be responsible for thelives of the kidnapped," it said.

    Adding to the confusion, a prominent Austrian politiciansaid Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, wasinvolved in negotiations, but the Gaddafi Foundation, whichSaif al-Islam heads, denied this.

    However, a Malian ministry source said the governmentsuspected the hostages may in any case have been moved offMalian soil after fighting between government forces and Tuaregrebels who ambushed an army convoy in Kidal region on Thursday.

    (Writing by Dominic Evans)