Nouakchott/Madrid - Mauritanian security forces on Monday said they had launched a massive manhunt for three Spanish aid workers abducted the previous night. Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said "everything points at" the Algerian-based al-Qaeda branch known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Spain had mobilized its diplomats "on the highest level" to find out where the abducted Spaniards were, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said at the Ibero-American summit in Estoril, Portugal.
All soldiers stationed in the remote desert area along Mauritania's border with Mali and Algeria had been mobilized to prevent the abductors from slipping out of the country, the military said.
Spanish police officers who had been guarding the Spanish embassy in Nouakchott were also participating in the manhunt, according to the aid organization Barcelona Accio Solidaria, which had employed the kidnapped aid workers.
The two Spanish men and a woman were abducted at gunpoint as they were returning to the capital, Nouakchott, from the port city of Nouadhibou, near Mauritania's border with Western Sahara to the north, security forces said, citing other members of the convoy that managed to escape.
Spanish media said turbaned attackers with covered faces targeted the last vehicle in a convoy, forcing its occupants to enter their four-wheel drive.
The convoy of 37 people in 12 vehicles was distributing humanitarian supplies to poor, rural communities, when they were attacked roughly 130 kilometres to the south of Nouadhibou, police said.
The Spanish Foreign Ministry, however, said the convoy had been heading for the Senegalese capital Dakar.
The Mauritanian army was called to accompany the rest of the convoy. Its members arrived safely in Nouakchott, according to Spanish sources.
Surveillance aircraft from Mauritania's anti-terrorism force were combing the desert, looking for a four-wheel drive vehicle, police said, adding that they believed it was possible that the abduction had been carried out by al-Qaeda.
Mauritanian security forces have battled fighters from the North African branch of al-Qaeda in the remote region around the country's border with Algeria and Mali for years.
The kidnappers did not steal anything from inside the aid workers' car, which indicated that they were not robbers, a spokesman for Barcelona Accio Solidaria said.
The road the convoy was travelling on had been regarded as one of the safest in the country.
The Spanish Foreign Ministry advised travellers to Mauritania to take precautions against "a situation of terrorist threat with a high risk of eventual attacks and kidnappings."
The Spanish government was in contact with the governments of Mauritania and neighbouring Mali, where a French citizen was abducted by alleged al-Qaeda militants a few days earlier.
Western countries have been concerned about the growing influence of al-Qaeda in some parts of Africa, including Mauritania. In December 2007, four French tourists were gunned down in the country, prompting the cancellation of the Paris-Dakar rally.
In June, a US teacher was shot dead in Nouakchott.
