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Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a harsh and violent leader within AQIM
[Ennahar] Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, who holds the French hostages kidnapped in Niger, is one of the most radical and violent leaders of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who gradually extended his field of action in the Sahara, according to experts."For two years," said French researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of "Nine Lives of Al Qaeda," Abu Zeid has dramatically expanded his field of action, with great mobility, kidnapping of tourists in southern Tunisia, opening the front of Niger which did not exist before." Born 44 years ago in the small town of Touggourt (600 km south of Algiers), he joined at the age of 24 the local committee of the Islamic Front (FIS) and then switches to the armed activity in late 1991. "According to his family," says Algerian journalist Mohamed Mokeddem, who runs the daily Ennahar, "he went into hiding shortly after the attack on the barracks of Guemmar (November 1991) He was accompanied by his brother Bachir, who was killed by the Algerian army in 1995. Until the end of year 90, he operates in the bush of Batna (eastern Algeria). In 2003, during the spectacular kidnapping of 32 European tourists in what was still known the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat ... now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb... (GSPC) in southern Algeria, Abu Zeid appears for the first time as an Assistant Chief of the kidnappers, Abderazak the Para. "The first pictures of him were taken by those hostage who have published them in the German media after their release," adds Mohamed Mokeddem, specialist of Algerian jihadist networks. These images show a small man, almost frail, with a short beard. In an amateur shot film by a member of AQIM in 2007, AFP was able to view in Mauritania, Abu Zeid appears briefly, looking somber and disapproving, alongside jihadists who play in the water around a their Toyotas stuck in a river. In 2006, when a quarrel broke out between Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the principal leaders of the GSPC in the Sahara and the organization's supreme leader, Abdelmalek Droukdal, installed in northern Algeria, Abu Zeid aligned the direction of movement. As an assistant of the "Emir of the Sahara" Yahia Djouadi, he commanded Katiba (group of jihadists) Tariq ibn Ziyad, some 200 men (mainly Algerian, Mauritanian and Malian) well equipped and highly mobile, based mainly in northern Mali. "He has a direct connexion with al Qaeda, including with the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, known for anti-French virulence," said Jean-Pierre Filiu. "This abduction will last, but what is worrying is that there were two cases of kidnappings in which it has ended badly," he recalls, referring to the English tourist Edwin Dyer, killed in June 2009 and the French Germaneau Michel, who died this summer, both captured by Abu Zeid and his men. A concern shared by Louis Caprioli, former assistant director in charge of the fight against terrorism to the DST (French intelligence). "Abu Zeid will make every effort to mediate the matter. He will set ultimatums. He builds on the strategy of terror (of the former head of Al Qaeda in Iraq) Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, and this is very worrying." Shortly after the announcement of the death of Edwin Dyer, a Malian official who had participated in the negotiations told AFP: "Abu Zeid is a violent and brutal man. he is very hard in negotiations. He has criticized us for working for whites, who for him are infidels ". Posted by: Fred 2010-09-24 |
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