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Mogadishu: Somalia's Islamist insurgents denied on Monday that they kidnap-ped two Western journalists near the capital Mogadishu and said they suspected the pair were being held for ransom by gunmen.
There has been no claim of responsibility for Saturday's abduction of Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian reporter freelancing for French television and Canada's Global National News, and Nigel Brennan, a freelance Australian photojournalist.
"We don't know who kidnapped them. There is a [rebel] group which kidnaps for ransom, separate from rivals who have political objectives," Islamist spokesman Shaikh Abdul Rahim Eisa Adow said.
"We shall do all that is possible to save them," he said.
Government officials said they also did not know where the two reporters were being held, or the local translator and driver who were seized with them.
The journalists were kidnapped when they were visiting displaced civilians on the outskirts of the city.
"We do not know where the foreign journalists are being held specifically. If we get to know, we shall make all efforts to release them," Abdul Fatah Ebrahim Shaweye, the deputy mayor of Mogadishu, told Reuters.
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