Terrorists Reportedly Holding 31 in Algeria

Thirty-one European tourists who vanished in the Sahara Desert are being held hostage by terrorist groups, a ranking Algerian official said Wednesday.

The official said the Algerian army had located the tourists. About 5,000 troops and 300 local guides were brought in to track them down.

The tourists, who had set off in seven separate groups on four-wheel-drive vehicles or motorcycles, disappeared starting in mid-February.

None of the tourists had employed guides.

The 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, one Dutch and a Swede are being held in the region of Illizi, about 810 miles southeast of Algiers near the Libyan border, the official said on condition he not be named.

“They are alive and are being held in several groups separated geographically,” the official said.

He refused to comment on the identities of the captors or to say whether they might belong to an Islamic extremist group. But he called them “terrorist groups.”

There has been speculation that Islamic rebels battling Algeria’s military-backed government for more than a decade might be behind the disappearances.