(Adds escapee comments) By Tiemoko Diallo BAMAKO, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Four European tourists abducted in northeast Mali have been taken by their captors to neighbouring Niger, a Malian security source said on Friday. Malian authorities blamed Thursday's kidnappings on Tuareg rebels, but diplomats said al Qaeda's North African wing was active in the area of the Sahara where the tourists disappeared. The four, whom the source identified as two Swiss nationals, a German and a Briton, were abducted in two all-terrain vehicles near Menaka, close to the remote Mali-Niger border. "The bandits fled to Niger and abandoned the tourists' two vehicles," said the source, who asked not to be named. The driver of a third tourist vehicle escaped the attack and alerted the Malian authorities. The four tourists had been attending the Tamadach festival in nearby Anderamboucane, described by the Malian ministry of tourism as a celebration of Tuareg culture. Tuareg rebels are active in both Mali and Niger. The Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed that two Swiss were abducted, and the German Foreign Ministry said a German national had been taken. The British embassy in the Senegalese capital Dakar, which covers Mali, said it was checking the reports. In December, a Canadian U.N. diplomat, Robert Fowler, and his Canadian aide went missing in Niger. A Tuareg dissident rebel group first claimed, then denied, their abduction. Niger officials said earlier this month that "armed Islamist groups" might be holding them. A foreign diplomat in the Malian capital Bamako said Thursday's kidnapping of the European tourists had "the same modus operandi" as the disappearance of the Canadians. "A vehicle appeared in front of us and we braked. I was pulled out of my 4x4, beaten with a club and forced to lie down on the ground," said Yaou Mahamane, a Niger-based tour guide who was driving one of the tour cars when eight armed men attacked. The tourists were snatched from their vehicle and driven away in the kidnappers' car, he said, speaking after returning to Niamey with three tourists who escaped. One of them, German national Manfred Schultz, said: "Our driver had the reflexes to do a U-turn and we sped towards Anderamboucane when bullets hit the car and a window." The diplomat expressed concern that militants from al Qaeda's north African wing were taking advantage of lawlessness in the region to carry out or profit from the abductions. Thursday's abduction was the worst such incident in Mali since an Islamic rebel group kidnapped 32 European tourists in the Sahara in 2003, holding some of them for six months. Algeria brokered a ceasefire between Mali's government and Tuareg rebels in July. But a group led by dissident Tuareg chief Ibrahima Bahanga killed at least 14 soldiers in an attack on an army post in December. (Writing and additional reporting by Daniel Magnowski in Dakar; additional reporting by David Lewis in Dakar, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Noah Barkin in Berlin and Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Niamey; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Elizabeth Piper)
