Al-Qaeda blames Germany for hostage's death in raid

BERLIN — Al-Qaeda's north African branch has blamed the German government for the recent death of a hostage in a botched rescue raid in Nigeria, and warned Berlin to improve its treatment of Muslims.

The US-based SITE monitoring service, which tracks jihadi websites, said Tuesday that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had issued a statement about last month's death of Edgar Raupach.

AQIM did not explicitly confirm that it had held Raupach, who was killed by his captors on May 31 as Nigerian security forces conducted a raid in the northern city of Kano.

But the statement said Germany had given Nigeria the "green light" for the military operation "at a time when the mujahideen (were) keen to peacefully settle the issue" if their demands were met. (...)