Kidnappers give France week before killing starts

We met (Thursday) and have decided that if in one week France doesn't agree to negotiate with us, we will kill one of the hostages.

A group claiming to have kidnapped three French citizens in Chad and the Central African Republic on Thursday gave Paris a week to start direct negotiations before it kills one of the aid workers.

- We met (Thursday) and have decided that if in one week France doesn't agree to negotiate with us, we will kill one of the hostages we are holding - spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Rizeigi for the kidnappers told AFP by telephone.

- We will also target French forces in Chad and we will carry out assassinations against French diplomats - he said.

A shadowy Darfur group calling itself Eagles for the Liberation of Africa has claimed the kidnappings of a French agronomist with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and two staff of relief agency Triangle in the Central African Republic (CAR) whose names have not been released.

Paris has difficult relations with Khartoum as it hosts a leading Darfur rebel leader, Abdel Wahid Nur, who heads a hardline faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, and has troops across the border in both Chad and the CAR.