| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa North |
| Algeria: Mokhtar ŽresumesŽ terrorist activity |
| 2009-04-23 |
| [ADN Kronos] A North African Al-Qaeda leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has resumed his armed struggle in Algeria after two years of inactivity, security officials said on Tuesday, quoted by Algerian daily el-Khabar. Belmokhtar, also known as Khaled Abu Al-Abbas, is considered is considered one of the key leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and one of the most wanted terrorists in the Sahara desert region. Authorities said he marked his comeback by kidnapping Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler and his assistant, Louis Guay, on their way to a United Nations mission in Niger last December. He has also been implicated in the kidnapping of four tourists from Britain, Switzerland and Germany. Belmokhtar (photo) reportedly suspended his terrorist activities in late 2006 because of differences between him, as leader of the so-called Mulatahamoun faction and militant leader Abdel Hamid Abu Zaid of the Tarik Ibn Ziyad group. There was also a rift between Belmokhtar and Abdel Malik Droukedel, the current leader of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), one of the main components of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. However, Algerian media reports said Droukedel sent a representative and military advisor Yahia Djouadi, alias Yahoia Abu Amar, to reconcile the parties in 2007. Belmokhtar is wanted by the international police organisation, Interpol, and is the subject of sanctions imposed against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda by United Nations resolution 1267 which includes an asset freeze, a travel ban and an arms embargo. Fowler, UN special envoy to Niger, and Guay, deputy director of the Sudan task force in Ottawa, and their Niger-based driver were kidnapped on 14 December 2008 about 45 kilometres northwest of Niamey. While the militant Front des Forces de Redressement initially claimed that its members had kidnapped Fowler and three others, a spokesman for the group later denied the claim. In January four tourists, a Swiss couple, a German woman in her 70s and a Briton, were seized in the border zone between Mali and Niger as they were returning from a Tuareg cultural festival. The North African branch of Al-Qaeda has claimed the kidnappings in an audio tape broadcast by the Arabic channel Al-Jazeera. |
| Posted by:Fred |