Niger rebels say to release Chinese uranium hostage

NIAMEY, July 10 (Reuters) Tuareg-led rebels in northern Niger said today they planned to release to the Red Cross a Chinese uranium executive kidnapped four days ago in the remote Saharan oasis town of Ingall.

''We are waiting for the Red Cross,'' Aghaly ag Alambo, leader of the rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), told Reuters by satellite phone from northern Niger. ''(The release) is going to happen without the government being involved.'' Zhang Guohua, an executive at China Nuclear International Uranium Corp (Sino-U), was kidnapped close to Ingall, more than 1,000 km north of the capital Niamey.

The MNJ said he had been taken because the group believed his company was helping to fund government arms purchases. They said at the time of the kidnapping their action was meant as a warning and that the hostage would not be harmed.

The MNJ, made up largely of Tuareg and other nomadic tribes, has launched a series of attacks since February against military and mining interests in Niger's mineral-rich north, home to the world's fourth biggest uranium mining industry.

It says the central government is neglecting the region and wants local people to have greater control over its mineral resources, which also include iron ore, silver and platinum.

REUTERS PY ND1828