Al-Qaeda suspects arrested for kidnap of aid workers

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(ANSA) - Rome, October 31 - Four people with suspected links to Al-Qaeda have been arrested in Algeria over the kidnapping of an Italian and two Spanish aid workers a week ago.

Rossella Urru, who comes from Sardinia, and her Spanish colleagues, Ainhoa Fernandez Rincon and Enrico Gonyans, were abducted on October 23 from the Rabuni refugee camp in southwestern Algeria.

Algerian secret service police arrested the suspects on Sunday in the western province of Bechar and Tamanrasset province in the country's south, according to the state-run Algerian newspaper el-Khabar.

The Spanish Defence Minister, Carme Chacon, said on Monday that the three kidnap victims "are doing well" as he appealed to their captors to release them in good health.

Eight people were arrested for alleged terrorist activities, and half of them are suspected to have been involved in the kidnapping, the report said.

Urru, 29, works for the Rome-based International Committee for the Development of Peoples (CISP) and spent the past two years working in the Saharawi refugee camp before she was kidnapped.

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