Somewhere in these mountains of Algeria, east of Algiers, a Frenchman may be held kidnapped.
He was snatched Sunday while driving through the mountains near the village of Ait Ouabane.
His abductors are the Caliphate Soldiers, a splinter group of Islamic State.
They've released a video threatening to execute Herve Gourdel, a tourist from Nice, over France's involvement in a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.
Algeria's military fought a brutal decade-long war in the 1990's against Islamist militants.
But attacks now are rare in this North African state.
Gourdel's kidnapping is one of the first abductions of a foreigner by militants here since the end of that war.
Residents of Ait Ouabane just can't imagine that a kidnapping happened right in their midst.
(SOUNDBITE) (French) HAMID, 45 YEAR OLDS VILLAGER, SAYING:
"Our village is safe. Nobody enters the village without permission. This information is completely fake."
(SOU
