MADRID – Spain’s intelligence agencies are involved in the search for three aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania, Spanish officials said Tuesday.

Mauritania’s government says it has sufficient air and land units to conduct the search and does not need assistance from Spain’s Civil Guard, the officials said.

The aid workers have not been located and it is not known who abducted them, but Spanish officials point to the radical group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as the likely suspect.

Spain is cooperating fully with the governments of Mauritania and Mali, a country where officials fear the kidnappers could flee with their hostages, the officials said.

The search operation is being coordinated by the Mauritanian army’s high command and involves five police patrol units and two planes, with the army providing support on land.

Aid workers Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gamez and Roque Pascual, who worked for Barcelona-Accio Solidaria, were abducted Sunday while transporting humanitarian aid on the highway that links Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital, to Nouadhibou, the most important city in the country’s northern region.

The other Barcelona Accio Solidaria members in the aid convoy are at a Nouakchott hotel under tight security and will decide Tuesday who will return to Spain and who will stay in the Mauritanian capital to await news about their co-workers. EFE