The three Spanish aid workers kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been reportedly transferred to AQIM operatives in northern Mali. Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the leader of AQIM™s smuggling and kidnapping operations in northern Mali and southern Algeria, is apparently in charge of the hostages.
Three Spanish nationals have been kidnapped by suspected Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb gunmen; a fourth escaped the abductors. The Spanish nationals were traveling in a convoy from Nouakchott to Nouadhibou when armed men abducted them outside the town of Chelkhett Legtouta. The Spaniards are working for an NGO group called Barcelona-Accio.
The French national abducted in Menaka on Wednesday was kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The 61-year-old man, identified as Pierre Camatte, was abducted overnight by armed men from his hotel. Camatte was in Mali conducting antimalarial plant research. The French government has recommended that all French nationals leave northern Mali immediately.
A French national was kidnapped in northeastern Mali; a manhunt has ensued to free the man. The unnamed French national is thought to have been conducting research on malaria in the northeastern Mali town of Menaka when three armed men wearing “turbans” took him. It is unclear whether Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is […]
Three men accused of joining Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been arrested by Mauritanian security forces. Their arrests come as President Abdel Aziz has pledged to crack down on the group’s presence in his country as part of a regional effort to rid the Sahel of AQIM.
Two suspected members of an extremist group held for seven years in Guantanamo Bay have been acquitted by an Algerian court. The men allege that they were “brutally tortured” in Guantanamo. They were arrested in Pakistan after 9/11 and sent home to Algeria last year; on Sunday, an Algerian court acquitted them of charges of […]
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has been recruiting Algerian fighters returning from Iraq. Upwards of 60 well-trained former Iraqi fighters may have joined the terrorist organization since 2007. Many of the returning fighters are recruited from Oued Souf, Batna, and Misla in Algeria. Several students are believed to be among those joining AQIM.
An Algerian accused of providing financial and logistical support to terrorists abroad through counterfeiting identity documents was arrested in Pamplona, northern Spain. The arrest in Spain is part of a Europe-wide crackdown on an Algerian terrorist-supporting cell that has led to the issuing of 17 warrants and the arrest of 10 suspects. The suspect is […]
An Algerian court has sentenced Abdelmalek Droukdel, the leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, to death in absentia. In addition, 48 accused AQIM co-defendants received various sentences, including other notorious AQIM emirs. Already sentenced to death for other terrorist attacks, Droukdel received the current death sentence for his group’s involvement in the April […]
Senegal has extradited to Mauritania a suspected Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb member thought to be linked to the Aug. 8 bomb attack on the French Embassy in Nouakchott. With his brother already in a Nouakchott prison, the extradited suspect, Taleb Ould Ahmednah, will face charges of involvement with a suicide bomb attack on […]
Six members of an Algerian counterfeit cell that are suspected of funding terrorism have been arrested in Italy. The Algerian cell is accused of counterfeiting identity documents including those of Algerian professional footballers in order to finance terrorist activities abroad. A total of 17 warrants have been issued for members of the cell throughout Europe […]
Three Islamists suspected of being Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb members were killed in an ambush by Algerian security forces near Tizi Ouzou, about 110 km east of Algiers. This ambush comes days after two Islamists were killed by Algerian security forces in Boumerdes, 50 km from Algiers.
An officer with the rank of commander of the National People™s Army (ANP) was killed yesterday when a car bomb he was set to defuse exploded, killing him instantly. He was killed near Cap Djinet, 35 kilometers east of Boumerdes. The bombs were discovered during a car crash when the car that overturned was found […]
Hamid Essouffi, aka Abdel Hamid Abou Zeid, the prominent Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb commander, has been badly wounded in fighting with Algerian security forces in Adrar province. Zeid leads the Taregh Ibn Ziyad brigade operating in the Sahara-Sahel region that stretches throughout Mali, Mauritiania, Niger, and southern Algeria. Zeid™s brigade is responsible for […]
Mauritania security forces have allegedly found a written statement from Mokhtar Belmokhtar with his signature when arresting a terror suspect in Attar, eastern Mauritania. It calls for fighters who are willing to die for God through suicide bombings and combat. “Mauritania has decided to engage in a war against Islam and Muslims by getting closer to […]
The US government has again designated Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as a terrorist organization. The re-designation of the terrorist organization is warranted by AQIM™s spread throughout the region and “the June 2009 murder of an American NGO worker in Nouakchott, and the May 2009 murder of a British hostage in northern Mali.”
Five dead bodies of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have been discovered during military sweeps in the forest of Bougaten in the Bordj Bou Arreridj region. The region, 220 km east of Algiers, is widely considered an AQIM stronghold and serves as a transit area for Islamists operating throughout the region.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has posted a message mourning the death of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, declaring that his loss “is a price chosen by the nation to pay willingly and with open heart in return for the watering of the tree of Islam with what it needs of blood, until it […]
Algerian authorities have said that seven security guards working for the Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin have been killed and two injured when gunmen opened fire on them. The attack occurred at a construction site operated by the company in the Kabylie region that is known for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb activity. No Canadians were […]
The US government has announced it will donate $5 million worth of trucks, communication devices, equipment, and clothing to the Mali government in an effort to boost the sub-Saharan government™s ability to combat Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The US joins Libya and Algeria in aiding the Mali government™s capacity to rid the Sahel […]
One of the Islamists killed on Oct. 7 by Algerian security forces has been identified as Mourad Louzai, a prominent Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader. He was killed along with nine others when their convoy was intercepted during a military operation outside the town El Bayadh, about 400 miles south of Algiers.
Algerian authorities killed four Islamists in two separate operations this weekend. Three Islamists were killed in Tizi Ouzo province while a fourth, said to be a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, was killed in the coastal city of Dellys. A number of hideouts were destroyed and arms were discovered during the operations.
Six of seven suspected Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb members arrested by the Mauritanian army were released from custody. The suspects were arrested while traveling armed in trucks in the Sahara desert in the eastern portion of the country. The remaining suspect in custody is a Mauritanian businessman.
Two men of Afghani and Turkish descent have been sentenced in a Frankfurt state court to serve time in prison for supporting a terrorist group. The two men were found guilty of financially supporting Islamic Jihad Union, an offshoot of the Jihadist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Their funding was linked to Adern Yilmaz, whose plans […]
A French physicist of Algerian decent who works at the CERN facility at the Franco-Swiss border has been charged in a French court. Anti-terrorism magistrates in Paris have filed preliminary charges against the 32-year-old man for various terrorist offenses, including contacting Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operatives and interest in committing terrorist attacks.
Sources high in the Mali government have leaked that four Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb members, including a bomb maker, were released in exchange for the Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler earlier this year. The sources report that the Canadian government played no part in the release of the terrorists from the Mali prison.
A gunbattle erupted in the Sahara desert in southern Algeria early Friday morning after Algerian security forces engaged several vehicles carrying armed fighters. Ten suspected Islamists and three Algerian security personal were reported killed. Security forces seized large quantities of weapons and medicine. Further clashes between Islamists and security forces have been reported.
The older brother of the two Algerian brothers arrested in Vienne in southeastern France is a physicist for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. CERN is best known for its building of the particle collider that aims to recreate the conditions of the “Big Bang.” The brothers were in contact with Al […]
French police have arrested two Algerian nationals in the southeastern town of Vienne. The men are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The two arrested Algerian nationals are brothers.
Dozens of Tuareg rebels have accepted an amnesty deal with the governments of Mali and Niger, including the rebels’ leaders. The peace ceremony was conducted in Libya where Muammar Al Gaddafi and Algerian mediators arbitrated the negotiations. The Tuareg rebellion has been ongoing since 2007, with rebels aspiring for greater economic development in the Sahel. […]