(IsraelNN.com) Members of the North African branch of the international terrorist organization Al-Qaeda announced Monday that they are holding two Austrian tourists hostage "in retribution" for what they claim is Western support for Israeli counterterrorism operations. Al-Qaeda threatened more such kidnappings.
AQIM will issue their demands for release of the two Austrians soon, Abu Muhammad said.

In an audio tape aired by the Gulf-based Al-Jazeera satellite network, a man who claimed to represent Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa (AQIM), Salah Abu Mohammad, identified the two Austrians and said they were in good condition. The alleged hostages, a man and a woman who had been touring southern Tunisia, were reported as missing in mid-February, according to Austrian officials.

"We tell Western tourists that, while they come into Tunisia seeking joy, our brothers are being slain in Gaza by the Jews with the collaboration of the Western states," Abu Mohammad said. "The jihadists have previously warned and alerted [Westerners] that the apostate Tunisian state cannot and will not be able to protect you, and the hands of the jihadists can reach you wherever you are on Tunisian soil."

AQIM will issue their demands for release of the two Austrians soon, Abu Muhammad said. He further warned Austria not to take any action in Algeria, AQIM's suspected home base of operations. Tunisian authorities, meanwhile, doubt that the hostages are still in their country.

AQIM has threatened Austrian targets in the past and it has a violent history of deadly attacks throughout North Africa. Most recently, AQIM claimed responsibility for a suicide truck bombing of an Algerian police station, which killed three people on January 29 and for a shooting three days later at the Israeli embassy and an adjacent bar frequented by Westerners in Nouakchott, Mauritania. Several people were wounded in the latter attack. AQIM called the Algeria bombing the latest in a long campaign and threatened that the cries of "Americans and all the infidels" will yet be heard.

Al-Qaeda Focusing More on Israel
In addition, Al-Qaeda's leaders have recently issued more pointed and specific threats against Israel and Israeli interests. A leader of AQIM, Abu Musab Abd Al-Wadud, issued a threat earlier this year against those North African and other Middle Eastern nations that have "diplomatic and economic ties with Hebraic nations". The kingdom of Morocco was specifically cited as such a nation. Al-Wadud also issued a generalized threat against Western assets anywhere in North Africa.

There have also been increasing reports of an Al-Qaeda presence in the Palestinian Authority. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas confirmed in late February that Al-Qaeda terrorists crossed the Egyptian-Gaza border when Gaza terrorists blew up the barrier separating the two sides. As far back as 2006, Abbas claimed that Al-Qaeda had set up shop in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Dominique Thomas, a specialist on radical Islam at the School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences in Paris, told the South African Independent, "When the border was opened between Gaza and Egypt, I saw calls on forums for foreign fighters to come and infiltrate the Gaza Strip to lead the battle against Israel."