Dissident Tuareg Rebel Group Says Holding UN Envoy

There was no immediate independent confirmation of the claim.

A rebel group in Niger led by a dissident Tuareg insurgent leader said on Tuesday it was holding the former Canadian diplomat serving as U.N. special envoy to the West African state who was reported missing on Monday.

"On December 15, 2008, fighters of the Front des Forces de Redressement (FFR) carried out a commando operation in the Tillabery region in which we detained four people including a Canadian diplomat, Mr. Robert Fowler," the FFR, which is led by dissident rebel leader Rhissa Ag Boula, said in a posting on its Website http://redressement.unblog.fr/.

United Nations officials said on Monday the U.N. vehicle in which Fowler, a Canadian aide whom they declined to identify and a local driver were traveling was found abandoned in southwest Niger some 30 miles (45 km) from the capital Niamey.

Ag Boula, a leader of a previous rebellion by Niger's Tuaregs in the 1990s, said in the statement the operation was a warning to "all diplomats who collaborate with the ethnic-killing regime of (Niger President) Mamadou Tandja".

There was no immediate independent confirmation of the claim by the FFR, formed by dissident Tuareg fighters who split this year with the main Tuareg rebel group, the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ), which operates mainly in the desert north.

Ag Boula said Fowler was well and would be transported to a "safe place"