An Algerian militant group said it has kidnapped a Frenchman and threatened to execute him unless Paris halts air strikes on Islamic State jihadists in Iraq, in a YouTube video posted Monday.
Jund al-Khilifa, which has pledged allegiance to IS, said it carried out Sunday's kidnapping in a mountainous region of eastern Algeria where Al-Qaeda is active.
The hostage, Herve Pierre Gourdel, white-haired and bespectacled, is shown squatting on the ground flanked by two hooded men clutching Kalashnikov assault rifles, as he asks for French President Francois Hollande to intervene.