Spain cautious over authors of Algerian kidnapping

Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jiménez said Monday no group has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping on Saturday of three aid workers, two of whom are Spanish, from a refugee camp close to the desert town of Tindouf in Algeria.

Jiménez said the attribution of the seizure of the three to Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb was "mere speculation." The Polisario, the ruling party organization of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, has accused the terrorist group of being behind the abduction on the three from the Rabouni refugee camp.

The two Spaniards captured are Ainhoa Fernández de Rincón from Madrid and Enric Gonyalons Sureda from Mallorca. They were working at the Western Saharan refugee camp for Spanish NGOs. The third person snatched is Italian.

Jiménez said the government is working hard for the release of the three as well as two Spanish volunteers working with Doctors Without Borders, who were kidnapped earlier this month at a refugee camp in Dadaab, in the North Eastern Province of Kenya.

The Algerian Foreign Ministry was also cautious about identifying the authors of the three captured in Tindouf.