{"id":1404,"date":"2016-01-17T12:12:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T04:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/2016\/01\/17\/australian-aid-workers-abducted-by-extremists-in-burkina-faso-officials-say\/"},"modified":"2016-01-17T12:12:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-17T04:12:57","slug":"australian-aid-workers-abducted-by-extremists-in-burkina-faso-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/2016\/01\/17\/australian-aid-workers-abducted-by-extremists-in-burkina-faso-officials-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian aid workers abducted by extremists in Burkina Faso, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Burkinafaso\" src=\"http:\/\/rack.2.mshcdn.com\/media\/ZgkyMDE2LzAxLzE3LzlkL2J1cmtpbmFmYXNvLmM5MGI2LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTU3NXgzMjMjCmUJanBn\/8b1f2fea\/6a1\/burkinafaso.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right;width: 50px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?via=Mashable&amp;text=Australian+aid+workers+abducted+by+extremists+in+Burkina+Faso%2C+officials+say&amp;src=http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2016%2F01%2F16%2Faustralians-abducted-burkina-faso%2F%3Futm_campaign%3DMash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial%26utm_cid%3DMash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\" style=\"margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Feed-tw\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/rack.1.mshcdn.com\/assets\/feed-tw-f7c0a094d16b7ee7c91a1e50839a8e00.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2016%2F01%2F16%2Faustralians-abducted-burkina-faso%2F%3Futm_campaign%3DMash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial%26utm_cid%3DMash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;src=sp\" style=\"margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Feed-fb\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/rack.1.mshcdn.com\/assets\/feed-fb-c0a21e8841794479b8086c32c6f24ba1.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>An Australian couple have been abducted in northern Burkina Faso, according to local government officials.<\/p>\n<p>The news comes after Burkina Faso and French forces took back a luxury hotel in the capital, Ouagadougou, which had been attacked by suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants Friday night. The violence left at least 23 dead, according to reports, and 126 hostages were freed.<\/p>\n<p>A local al-Qaeda affiliate, AQIM, <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2016\/01\/15\/al-qaeda-attacks-burkina-faso\/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\">claimed responsibility <\/a>for the hotel attack<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2016\/01\/16\/burkina-faso-hotel-attack-ends\/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\">Burkina Faso hotel attack leaves at least 23 dead, dozens of hostages freed<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It had previously been reported that an Austrian doctor and his wife were kidnapped by extremists in the country&#8217;s north, but on Saturday, Burkina Faso&#8217;s Minister of Security and Internal Affairs Simon Compaore clarified the couple were Australian, not Austrian. It is not clear if the kidnapping is related to events in Ouagadougou. <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2016\/01\/16\/australians-abducted-burkina-faso\/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More about <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/category\/australia\/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\">Australia<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/category\/us-world\/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\">Us World<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/category\/burkina-faso\/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&amp;utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial\">Burkina Faso<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/Mashable\/~4\/iIXibJzCeok\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Australian couple have been abducted in northern Burkina Faso, according to local government officials. The news comes after Burkina Faso and French forces took back a luxury hotel in the capital, Ouagadougou, which had been attacked by suspected al-Qaeda-linked &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/2016\/01\/17\/australian-aid-workers-abducted-by-extremists-in-burkina-faso-officials-say\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[728,1078,732],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","tag-australia","tag-burkina-faso","tag-us-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/murtadha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}