Algeria media on missing tourists

The Algerian media have been taking a fresh look at the fate of 31 European tourists who have gone missing in the Sahara desert during the past three months.

Fifteen Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede, travelling in six or seven separate groups, are feared kidnapped.

What the papers describe as "the tourist affair" was given a new twist on Sunday when Algerian radio quoted Tourism Minister Lakhdar Dorbani as saying that talks were under way with their kidnappers.

This was denied the following day, when Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni told the radio "there have been no negotiations or contact with anybody".

The papers picked up on the government's sensitivity over the disappearances. There have been worries over their effect on travel to the country.

The independent French-language daily Liberte said Dorbani was subsequently "rebuked" for speaking about talks, because he "obviously said too much".

The L'Expression daily says this is why Mr Dorbani lost his job in a major cabinet reshuffle, announced on Monday.

Mr Dorbani, it says, "single-handedly sealed his own fate through his gaffe over the foreign tourists".

The paper highlights the "capital and strategic importance of the tourism portfolio", and suggests that the authorities will be "picky about who they choose as the next minister of tourism".

Uncertainty

There is much speculation over who was behind the disappearances.

In an article headlined "Zerhouni sheds little light", the independent French-language daily La Tribune says two main "scenarios" have been put forward.

Scenario number one, the paper says, is that the tourists could have been kidnapped by factions of an armed Islamic group operating in the Sahara, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

"The second is that they could have been abducted by criminals," the paper says.

The Arabic daily El-Khabar adds to the uncertainty.

Optimism prevails that these tourists will soon return to their families safe and sound

Algerian radio

It quotes a Touareg tribal leader as saying that 11 German tourists are being held by gunmen in the mountains in the southwest of the country.

"We don't know if it is a terrorist group or a gang. There are no contacts with the kidnappers, whose intentions have not been disclosed so far," Hadj Ibrahim Ben Ghouna told the paper.

El-Khabar also quotes reports saying that the tourists have been kidnapped by smugglers, who are interested in "a hefty ransom".

Meanwhile in parliament, MPs have asked whether the "tourist affair is a conspiracy designed to damage Algerian tourism and the economy", the paper adds.

Happy end

Despite what it calls the "continuing confusion" over how the tourists vanished and over their present whereabouts, Algerian radio holds out some hope.

"Optimism prevails ... that there will be a happy ending and that these tourists will soon return to their families safe and sound," the radio says.

It quotes Interior Minister Zerhouni as saying that nearly 5,000 soldiers are carrying out "an extensive combing operation" in the desert.

He says the search has so far turned up some of the tourists' vehicles and personal effects, such as clothes and even "written matter", presumably notebooks.

"The most recent indications make us believe they are still alive," Mr Zerhouni adds.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.