On the latest kidnappings, the BBC news website notes:
Laouali Dan Dahdit said the kidnappers "spoke mostly Arabic and Tamashek", a Berber language used by the desert region's semi-nomadic Tuareg people.
Which reminds me, last Saturday morning (11 Sept 2010), Robert Fowler, the Canadian diplomat who was kidnapped by AQIM, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4. There wasn't much new in what he said on Saturday. Most of it was a retelling of the interviews previously available on the internet via Canadian TV. One striking thing, though, was the comment that the most frequently spoken language amongst the AQIM guys (or the language which they had in common - I forget which) was Tamashek.
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