Mali rebel group frees Spanish national kidnapped in Algeria

BAMAKO, Mali — A rebel alliance in Mali said Tuesday it has freed a Spanish man who was kidnapped in southern Algeria last week.

The Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a coalition of separatist armed groups in Mali's predominately Tuareg north, said on X that it freed Spanish citizen Gilbert Navarro.

''The former Spanish hostage, Mr. Navarro Giane Gilbert, has been released by the FLA and is in good health,'' said Mohamed Maouloud Ramaadan, a spokesperson for the separatist movement.

Boubacar Sadigh Ould Taleb, the FLA's communications officer, told The Associated Press that Navarro was kidnapped on Jan. 17 by a ''transnational mafia,'' without identifying the group.

Taleb said armed men from the FLA located Navarro and his kidnappers near the town of Indelimane in Mali's eastern region of Menaka, more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the Algerian border. After surrounding the kidnappers, the rebel fighters were able to negotiate the Spanish man's release on Monday, he said.

''The former hostage will be handed over to the Algerian authorities very soon so that he can be reunited with his family," Taleb said.

Spain's Foreign Ministry said last week that a Spanish man had been kidnapped in an unspecified northern African country. Spanish media reported that the man was captured in southern Algeria and taken to Mali by the Islamic State group in the Greater Sahara.

The Foreign Ministry would not confirm the media reports or reveal the location of the kidnapping.

On Algerian television, a special program on Tuesday evening showed Navarro aboard an Algerian army plane landing at a military airport west of Algiers. The country's defense ministry said Navarro was a tourist who was taken by five members of an unnamed armed group.

He was on Tuesday handed over to Algerian authorities, the ministry statement said.

Kidnappings have rarely been reported in Algeria in recent years, but Africa's largest country by area continues to face instability along its southern borders with Niger and Mali.

The two countries are among the states in West Africa's Sahel region that have been upended by military coups and are now led by juntas after previous governments failed to quell violence and discontent. Abductions have become increasingly common in Mali, according to data from the non-profit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data.

Since the peace agreement between Mali's government and the armed groups lapsed in 2023, the ruling military junta in Bamako has designated the armed groups, including the FLA, as terrorists. To fight them, the government has ended its security partnerships with Western nations, turning instead to mercenary groups, including the Russian African Corps, the successor to the Wagner paramilitary group.

It remained unclear how Navarro's release was negotiated. Algeria has historically served as a regional mediator in northwest Africa but has lately fallen out of favor among the region's junta-led governments. In a statement earlier this month, Mali's Foreign Affairs Ministry denounced Algiers' ''closeness and complicity with the terrorist groups destabilizing Mali." It accused Algeria of political interference, paternalism and a ''hackneyed, firefighter-pyromaniac strategy.''