Al-Qaida claims it killed British hostage in Sahara

AL-QAIDA’S north African wing has said it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara.

Britain said it had reason to believe the hostage, Edwin Dyer, had been killed. Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the killing as “a barbaric act of terrorism” and said the killers would be hunted down.

An official source in Algeria, which has been the main focus of activities for al-Qaida’s North African wing, said: “The Briton, according to our information, has been killed by AQIM (al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb) in Mali.”