Vienna inactivates Echorouk’s website

Austrian authorities started obscuring negotiations process Wednesday for the release of two Austrian tourists being held hostage by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

 The negotiations are carried out between Anton Prohaska, former Austrian ambassador to France, Austria’s ambassador to Algeria and a number of African leaders and top officials including Malian and Libyan Presidents as well as Abdelhamid Abuzid, Al-Qaeda’s spokesperson. According to Italian news agency AKI, Austrian official sources said Algerian media was also obscured especially Arabic daily newspaper Echorouk Al Yaoumi.

Echorouk has constituted a main media news source in terms of Libyan mediation and talks led by the Austrian ambassador in Mali where Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber are said to be hidden by Al-Qaeda.

 The newspaper’s website has been inactivated, according to the same sources.Earlier, Echorouk reported that an Austrian security delegation arrived in Algeria to coordinate with Algeria for the release of the hostages.It also dealt with famous Islamic scholars’ statements who had called on the kidnappers to release Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber in the name of Islam.According to the same newspaper, Algerian parachutists were searching for the hostages in the desert.