Algerian troops hunt for French hostage

TIKJDA, Algeria — Algerian troops scoured a mountainous eastern region Tuesday for a Frenchman kidnapped by militants linked to the Islamic State group who have threatened to execute him, a security source said.

Elite anti-terrorism soldiers were among those searching for Herve Pierre Gourdel, 55, a mountain guide who was seized on Sunday evening while trekking in the rugged, heavily forested Kabylie area, where Al Qaeda is active.

Jund Al Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate", which has pledged allegiance to IS, which is fighting in Iraq and Syria, has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

In a video posted on YouTube Monday, it threatened to kill Gourdel within 24 hours unless France halted its air strikes against jihadist targets in Iraq.

The video showed the white-haired and bespectacled hostage squatting on the ground flanked by two hooded men clutching Kalashnikov assault rifles.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls vowed Tuesday there would be "no negotiation" with the kidnappers and said Paris would press ahead with air strikes against extremists.

More soldiers joined the search for Gourdel Tuesday, with some 20 truckloads of paratroopers brought to the edge of the Ait Ouabane forest, near where the kidnapping took place, a witness said.

They began combing a sector of 10 square kilometres in the area, where jihadists ambushed an army patrol in April and killed 10 soldiers.

At the same time, police have set up roadblocks along the highway that works its way through the mountains.

The threat against Gourdel followed a call by IS for Muslims to kill Westerners whose nations have joined a campaign to battle the jihadist group.

Last week, France conducted its first air raids in Iraq, but has ruled out joining military operations in Syria, where US-led strikes Tuesday opened a new front in the battle against IS militants.

The kidnapping of Gourdel was Jund Al Khilifa's first since it announced at the end of August that it was withdrawing from Al Qaeda because of the network's "deviance" and pledged loyalty to IS.

"If you have several armies in Iraq and an army in Syria, consider that you also have spears in Algeria that you can throw in any direction you want," it said in a statement directed to IS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.