Another kidnapping turns deadly, for the bad guys this time

al-Reuters has the story:

The Sudanese army said it had killed the leader of a group that kidnapped eleven Western tourists and eight Egyptians on Sunday, and said the hostages were now in Chad.
In a statement, the army was quoted as saying one of its units killed five other gunmen and detained two in a gun battle near the Egyptian and Libyan border. The army said "preliminary information" indicated the 19 hostages were inside Chad under the protection of 30 armed men. There was no comment from the Chadian government. The army unit seized a white vehicle belonging to an Egyptian tourism company, along with papers linking the gunmen with the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), a Darfur rebel group.
Egypt has identified the tourists as five Germans, five Italians, and one Romanian. The eight Egyptians include the owner of the tour company, whose German wife has been in contact with the kidnappers by satellite phone, according to Egyptian officials.
The Egyptian government and many political analysts have largely ruled out any political motivation behind the kidnapping. Egyptian officials say the kidnappers have demanded a ransom from the German government. One security official put the figure at $6 million euros.
Egypt said this month four masked kidnappers seized the hostages while they were on safari in a remote desert area and took them across the border into Sudan. An Egyptian government official said on Saturday the hostages were inside Sudan.
The Sudanese army, however, said its unit searched for the hostages in the border area with Egypt from Thursday to Sunday but only found empty food cans and "traces of their vehicles in the direction of the Libyan border", the statement said.
On its way back inside Sudan, the army unit encountered a speeding white vehicle whose passengers refused to stop and opened fire at the Sudanese soldiers, the statement said. "As a result of the clash, six of the (gunmen) were killed, including Bakhit the leader of the kidnappers, who is a Chadian national, and the capture of two others, one of them Sudanese."
The statement said the army unit also seized firearms and a rocket-propelled grenade.
A spokesman for the SLA-Unity faction Mahgoub Hussein denied any involvement in the kidnapping.