NIAMEY, Niger – Rebels in Niger have released a Chinese uranium company executive held hostage more than a week, the rebel group’s leader said Monday. Three Nigerien soldiers also were handed over to the Red Cross, he said.

Aghali Alambo, the leader of the ethnic Tuareg rebel group called the Niger Movement for Justice, said the Red Cross 4×4 left the rebel base in the northern desert of this arid West African country Monday morning. He spoke by satellite phone from Iferouane, about 1620 miles northeast of the capital of Niamey.

Chinese officials in Nigeria declined to comment and Red Cross workers in Niger’s capital said they had not yet received confirmation of the hostage’s release.

Zhang Guohua, an executive at a Chinese uranium company, had been held since July 6 by the group. The rebels have also been holding about 40 Nigerien government soldiers captive since taking them in an attack on an army base last month.

The six-month-old rebel group, the Niger Movement for Justice, has become increasingly active in Niger’s desert in recent months. It is made up of members of the ethnic Tuareg minority who say the government has abandoned its northern citizens and reneged on promises from a 1995 peace deal that ended years of clashes.

Alambo said they did not ask for any ransom for the Chinese hostage, and that none was paid. In neighboring Nigeria, criminal gangs regularly kidnap oil workers in pursuit of large cash ransoms.

He said they had kidnapped the Chinese executive mainly to draw attention to their cause and what they see as a collaboration between their government and China in trying to put down their movement.

“It was just a type of advertisement, us taking the Chinese,” Alambo said. The group, known by its French acronym MNJ, has charged that Chinese firms in Niger are helping the government acquire weapons that are then being turned on the Tuaregs.

Government officials said they did not have any confirmation of the hostage’s release, and declined to comment further. The Nigerien government has repeatedly referred to MNJ as a collection of bandits and drug traffickers who want to destabilize the country.

In last month’s attack on the army base, 13 government soldiers were killed. MNJ originally took about 80 soldiers hostage, but later released about 30 who had been injured in the fighting. Alambo said that the three men released Monday had gunshot wounds, though none life-threatening. He said they continue to hold about 40 soldiers.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency had reported that Zhang was taken by Tuaregs who were upset at the company’s policy of employing people from the capital rather than locals.

Associated Press Writer Heidi Vogt contributed to this report from Lagos, Nigeria.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)