Two Austrian tourists who disappeared in Tunisia last month were kidnapped by an Islamic militant group in retribution for Western cooperation with Israel, the group said in a recording broadcast on Al Jazeera television. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a regional group allied with Al Qaeda, said it kidnapped the Austrians on Feb. 22. “We tell Western tourists that at the same time they are flowing into Tunisian lands seeking joy, our brothers are being slain in Gaza by the Jews with the collaboration of the Western states,” said a man who identified himself as Salah Abu Muhammad.

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