Berlin - Four European tourists kidnapped last month in Mali are in the hands of the North African branch of al-Qaeda, the mass-circulation German newspaper Bild said Friday, quoting German foreign intelligence.

The tourists - a couple from Switzerland, a 77-year-old German woman and a British man - were kidnapped at gunpoint when an armed group stopped their car in a remote part of Mali on January 23.

Bild said the German BND intelligence service believed the abductors, who have not issued any claim of responsibility, were the Maghreb Arm of al-Qaeda led by a man named Abu-Said.

There was no prospect of them being released quickly, Bild added. Earlier reports suggested the kidnappers might have been Mali rebels.

The German Foreign Ministry has a crisis team working on the case, but a spokeswoman said Friday in Berlin she could make no comment on "operational details." (dpa)