Thanks for originally posting.
I sent you a PM suggesting how to do it better next time ;-)
Yes, the link to the article is only of historic interest, but for many of us, it marked the beginning of the end of a lifetime's desert travelling in places we knew very well. And if you came close to it and knew some of the people involved (as with me), it has added poignancy.
Plus, as the reporter notes, this key event introduced the whole kidnap-for-ransom enterprise in the Sahara which continues today. I just read that a Nigerienne politician (or similar) may have been behind the Abalak abduction in 2016 in a bid to cover the cost of a consignment of his cocaine that went missing in Mali.
And, I did not know that the vile Abu Zeid was in on 2003, along with the mysterious El Para.
Fyi, the now-prize-winning reporter, Rukmini Callimachi, became well-known for her NYT
Caliphate [ISIS] podcast last year.
Don't know if I mentioned it here before but a while back I copied some Motorrad (German moto mag) articles from 2004 by Rainer Bracht (who we met two-weeks before he was grabbed with 3 others we also met). He wrote a book on the ordeal (not read it).
I see now the original Motorrad files are long gone*, but I copied the Google translations and a few pics into a post which make
interesting reading.
* Actually,
found them again