Al Qaeda sets 20-day deadline for French hostage's life

Al Qaeda's North African wing threatened to execute a French hostage if four al Qaeda prisoners being held in Mali are not released within 20 days.                                           

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said Pierre Kamat would be put to death if the French and Malian governments did not meet its demands, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said on Monday, citing a Jihadist forum.                                           

"We call upon the French public and the family of the kidnapped to put pressure on the Sarkozy government and to prevent it from committing the stupidity which was committed by Gordon Brown against its British citizen," the group said.                                           

Kamat was kidnapped in Mali on November 25 last year and the group claimed his kidnapping as well as the kidnapping of three Spaniards.                                           

Last May AQIM executed British hostage Edwin Dyer, who was kidnapped on the border between Mali and Niger in late January.