Algerian investigators have identified suspects involved in the kidnapping and beheading of French tourist Hervé Gourdel, Algeria’s justice minister said Tuesday, reports FRANCE 24.
"The preliminary investigation has identified certain members of the terrorist group that carried out this crime," Tayeb Louh said on state television.
Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from the southern French city of Nice, was kidnapped earlier this month by the Algerian jihadist group Jund al-Khalifa while he was hiking in the mountainous Tizi Ouzou area.
The Jund al-Khalifa fi Ard al-Jazayer – variously translated as the “Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria” or “Caliphate Soldiers of Algeria” – emerged earlier this month, when a regional commander of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) released a statement announcing that he had broken away from al Qaeda and had sworn loyalty to the Islamic State group (IS).
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.