WORLD BRIEFING / MALI

Kidnappers freed four foreign hostages who had been held for months, including two United Nations staffers, a Malian official said. Presidential spokesman Seydou Cissouma said two Canadians, Robert Fowler and his aide Louis Guay, were set free along with two female tourists.

Al Qaeda’s North Africa branch had claimed the abductions, saying it was holding Fowler, a senior U.N. peace envoy, and the others after taking them captive in neighboring Niger.

The U.N. staffers were seized in December; the two women were among four tourists who were abducted a month later. Cissouma had no further details and there was no word on the fate of the two other missing tourists.

The Al Qaeda group did not issue demands for the hostages’ release, but in other cases has obtained ransoms for Western tourists kidnapped in the Sahara, the world’s largest desert.