DAKAR (Reuters) – A video appearing to show seven French citizens, including four children, kidnapped in Cameroon last week was posted on the YouTube website on Monday.

“We have been taken by Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad,” one of the male hostages said in the video, referring to the name in Arabic of Nigeria’s Boko Haram militants. “They want the liberation of their brothers in Cameroon and their women imprisoned in Nigeria.”

YAOUNDE/DAKAR (Reuters) – The Islamist militants believed to have abducted a French family of seven, including four children, in Cameroon have taken them into Nigeria, a Cameroonian minister said on Wednesday.

The abduction highlights the growing risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa since Paris sent forces into Mali to oust Islamist rebels occupying the country’s north.

YAOUNDE/DAKAR (Reuters) – Islamist militants from neighbouring Nigeria abducted a French family of seven, including four children, in northern Cameroon on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande said.

The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country’s north.

YAOUNDE/DAKAR (Reuters) – Islamist militants from neighbouring Nigeria abducted a French family of seven, including four children, in northern Cameroon on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande said.

The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country’s north.

DAKAR/ATHENS (Reuters) – Gunmen kidnapped seven French nationals, including three children, on Tuesday in northern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria and the perpetrators came from neighbouring Nigeria, French President Francois Hollande said.

The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country’s north.

DAKAR/ATHENS (Reuters) – Gunmen kidnapped seven French nationals, including three children, on Tuesday in northern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria and the perpetrators came from neighboring Nigeria, French President Francois Hollande said.

The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country’s north.

DAKAR, Feb 13 (Reuters) – AngloGold Ashanti is to
hold off on a $500 million expansion plan for its Sadiola joint
venture mine in western Mali until the security situation
becomes clearer, a company executive said on Wednesday.

Richard Duffy, executive vice-president of continental
Africa, said the world’s third-largest gold producer was simply
waiting on developments in the French-led war to oust Islamist
rebels from the country’s northern desert.

DAKAR, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Senegalese telecommunications
group Sonatel SA reported stronger full-year net
profit on Tuesday, using its dominant market position to fight
mounting competition from other West African providers, analysts
said.

Sonatel’s EBITDA profit met market expectations with a 3.7
percent rise to 347 billion CFA francs ($707.75 million) while
net profit jumped 11 percent to 171 billion CFA vs 154 billion
in 2011, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

NIAMEY/BAMAKO (Reuters) – An armored column of Chadian troops in Niger moved towards the Malian border on Tuesday, part of an African military force that is gradually deploying to support French operations against Islamist rebels in northern Mali.

A Reuters reporter witnessed the Chadian forces, who are experienced in desert operations, advancing north from the capital Niamey on the road to Ouallam, some 100 km (60 miles) from the border, where a company of Niger’s troops are already stationed.

DIABALY, Mali (Reuters) – French and Malian armored columns rolled into the towns of Diabaly and Douentza in central Mali on Monday after the al Qaeda-linked rebels who had seized them fled into the bush to avoid air strikes.

France said the advance was a significant step in its campaign to break Islamist fighters’ grip over Mali’s vast desert north, a presence raising fears of the region becoming a an African launchpad for international militant attacks.