Malians are claiming to have nailed the guy behind the Saudi killings and the US diplomat killing in Niger.
IOL: Man held in tourists killings=
Bamako - Security forces in Mali have arrested a suspect in the killing of four Saudi tourists and an American in neighbouring Niger, a security source told AFP on Thursday.
"We arrested on Wednesday in Gao (Mali's north-east) a man considered a suspect in the deaths of the four Saudis, killed on Niger's territory" in December 2009, a security source in the north of the country told AFP by telephone.
"The same individual is suspected of killing, or having participated in the murder, of an American diplomat, also in Niger," more than nine years ago, the source said, adding that the suspect would be brought to Mali's capital Bamako "very quickly."
In December, an armed group attacked six Saudi tourists who were in western Niger on a hunting trip in the desert, over the border from Mali, killing four of them.
Wealthy Arabs from the Gulf and Libyan dignitaries often visit to hunt with falcons a local wild goose that lives in northern Niger and Mali and is highly prized for its meat.
In December 2000, a former US soldier working at the US embassy in Niger's capital Niamey was shot dead and his car stolen. The vehicle was later found in Mali. - Sapa-AFP