RAMALLAH, Feb. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- A German national, who was earlier kidnapped by gunmen in the West Bank city of Nablus, was released on Thursday night, Palestinian sources said.

    The German, who was seized and taken away by gunmen from a hotel in Nablus, was later handed over unharmed to the Palestinian police, said the sources.

    Meanwhile, a source from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed wing of the Fatah movement, said that two of the gunmen handed the German over to police after finding that they kidnapped the wrong man.

    The two gunmen were arrested and the whole incident spanned less than an hour, according to the sources.

    The brief kidnapping came after Palestinian gunmen have threatened to target Danes, French and Norwegians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank following an uproar among Muslims over a controversial cartoon that depicts Prophet Mohammad with a turban shaped like a bomb.

    The cartoon was originally printed in a Danish newspaper and later reprinted in Norway and France. Enditem