Al-Qaida says it kidnapped two Austrian tourists in response to Israel’s recent Gaza Strip incursion.
The claim was aired on Al-Jazeera television Monday in an audio recording by a man calling himself Salah Abu Mohammed.
“We tell Western tourists that at the same time they are flowing into Tunisian lands seeking joy, our brothers are being slain in Gaza by the Jews with the collaboration of the Western states,” Abu Mohammed said in the recording.
The Austrians, identified as tax consultant Wolfgang Ebner and his companion Andrea Kloiber, were kidnapped while on vacation in Tunisia. They were reported missing in mid-February. EnNahar, the Web site of an Algerian newspaper, reported Tuesday that the couple has since been moved to Mali.
