| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa North |
| U.S. Blacklists Algerian Qaida Breakaway Faction |
| 2013-12-19 |
| [An Nahar] The United States on Wednesday blacklisted a shadowy al-Qaeda breakaway faction behind the bloody siege of an Algerian gas plant. The Signatories in Blood, an armed unit founded by the one-eyed Mokhtar Belmokhtar last year when he split from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. The group, also known as the al-Mulathamun Battalion, "grabbed credit for the January 2013 attack against a gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria," the department said in a statement, adding that three Americans were among the 38 civilians killed in the siege. The designation bar U.S. citizens and companies from having any dealings with the Algerian group. |
| Posted by:Fred |