ALGIERS: Algerian security forces said Sunday they have freed an Egyptian telecoms engineer held hostage by Islamic militants for four months. Amjed Wahba, an engineer with Egypt s Orascom Telecom, was freed on Thursday and apart from being traumatized was in satisfactory health, a statement said. Wahba was kidnapped on May 28 near Tizi-Ouzou in the Kabylie region east of Algiers. According to media reports he was taken from his office in the early hours by men dressed in police fatigues armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles. No group claimed responsibility but Arabic newspaper Ech-Chourouk attributed it to the self-styled north African branch of Al-Qaeda, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of several billion Algerian dinars (tens of millions of euros/dollars), according to the security forces. The freeing of the engineer took place in an operation that needed two months of preparation ... In order to save his life no action was taken until the moment when conditions allowed him to be freed, the statement said. Although he is somewhat traumatized, according to doctors who have examined him the ex-hostage is in a satisfactory state of health. The north African branch of Al-Qaeda has carried out numerous suicide bombings in recent months, including one on a northeastern naval barracks on Saturday in which 30 people died and another in the eastern city of Batna on Thursday which killed 22.
