VIENNA, March 28 (Reuters) - A Malian Tuareg politician said in an interview published on Friday that two Austrian tourists held captive by al Qaeda in the Sahara were not in the country, as previously suspected.

Assarid Ag Imbarcaouane, a member of the National Assembly, told Austrian daily Oesterreich that nomadic Tuareg tribesman who roam the isolated swathes of northern Mali would be aware if the hostages were present. The kidnappers would need fuel for vehicles and would get it from smugglers, who would tell the Tuaregs, he said.

"They are not in Mali. I would know and our President (Amadou Toumani Toure) would know."

Austrian diplomats are in Mali trying to secure the release of Andrea Kloiber, 43, and Wolfgang Ebner, 51. An Algerian website said the pair had been taken to an Islamist hideout in the Kidal region of northern Mali near the Algerian and Niger borders.

They disappeared in February while on holiday in Tunisia and Algerian-based al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in website postings, has set a deadline of April 6 for payment of a ransom and the release of 10 militants held in Algeria and Tunisia in return for releasing them.

Mali's government has always said there is no evidence the pair are on its territory. Fighting in the northern area between the army and Tuareg rebels was thought, however, to be hindering efforts to free the couple.

Imbarcaouane denied local Tuaregs or rebel groups in the area would take money for helping kidnappers.

"We know all about the rebellion and would know if they were helping the kidnappers."

In the past, Tuareg tribesmen leading a sporadic revolt against the central government in Bamako have clashed with members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was previously known. (Reporting by Paul Bolding; additional reporting by Daniel Flynn in Dakar; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

AlertNet news is provided by