Mali rebels free Spanish man abducted by bandits in Algeria hoping to sell him to IS group

This post was originally published on France24

A coalition of separatists in Mali, the Azawad Liberation Front, on Tuesday said it had freed a Spanish national kidnapped by a group of bandits in Algeria. The kidnappers had hoped to sell him to the Islamic State (IS) group in Mali but were stopped before they could hand him over. An elderly Austrian woman kidnapped in Niger at around the same time is believed to already have been transferred to an IS group offshoot in Mali.