Al Qaeda video claiming responsibility of a Swiss nun's kidnapping has surfaced

A video from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Sahara region, claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of a Swiss nun, Beatrice Stockly, from her home two weeks ago in northern Mali is making rounds.

“We, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Sahara region, declare our responsibility for the kidnapping of this Christianizing kaffir Beatrice Stockly, who by her work, drove out many from the fold of Islam by seducing them with crumbs of this worldly life,” a supposed spokesperson for the group said in the video.

In the roughly eight-minute video, the masked man with a British accent demands that its members imprisoned by the Malian government be released in exchange for the missionary.

Stockly had once before been abducted from Timbuktu in April 2012 by another Islamic group, Ansar Diner, according to officials. With the help of officials from neighbouring Burkina Faso, she was rescued and advised not to stay in Mali, but returned a year after the incident.

The extremist group has a long history of kidnap-for-ransom in the region, to the extent that it once was one of its major revenue sources.