NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – Three Spanish aid workers – two men and a woman – were kidnapped over the weekend on the highway that links Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital, to Nouadhibou, the most important city in the country’s northern region, Mauritanian security officials told Efe.

Aid workers Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gamez and Roque Pascual, who worked for Barcelona-Accio Solidaria, were abducted on Sunday, a spokesman for the non-governmental organization said.

The three were transporting humanitarian aid when they were kidnapped, the Barcelona-Accio Solidaria spokesman said.

Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Monday that “everything points” to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb being behind the kidnappings.

Rubalcaba, however, admitted it was not exactly clear who abducted the aid workers.

The fear is that “we are dealing with a kidnapping by Islamic radicals,” the Spanish interior minister said.

“This would not be the first kidnapping” by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb of “European or American aid workers in that area,” Rubalcaba said on arrival in Brussels for a meeting of European Union interior ministers.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos spoke Sunday with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who “has decided to put all the security forces” into the search for the aid workers, Rubalcaba said.

The interior minister said he spoke with the aid workers’ families and was awaiting further news on the situation.

The Mauritanian army is trying to prevent the suspected terrorists who abducted the Spanish aid workers from getting away with their hostages, security officials in Nouadhibou told Efe Monday.

Military units based in the city are trying to surround the kidnappers so they cannot escape, the Mauritanian officials said. EFE