KANO, Nigeria — The United Kingdom's military says its warplanes recently
spotted in Nigeria's capital city were there to move soldiers to aid the French
intervention in Mali — not to rescue kidnapped foreign hostages.
The Ministry of Defense said
Sunday that the planes had ferried Nigerian troops and equipment to Bamako,
Mali.
An Islamic extremist group in Nigeria called Ansaru partially blamed the
presence of those planes as an excuse for claiming Saturday that it killed
seven foreign hostages it had taken.
Those kidnapped included four
Lebanese citizens and one each from Britain, Greece and Italy — all employees
of Setraco, a Lebanese construction company with an operation in Bauchi state.
The Ministry of Defense
declined to comment further about the claimed hostage killings. The hostages have
yet to be found.
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