Eurasia Review
If Mokhtar Belmokhtar is hiding in Libya, the fugitive terrorist is an “obvious threat” to the entire region, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said on Monday (April 14th).
“You never wish the death of a man but he is not very desirable company,” Keita said during a visit to Senegal.
His comments came the day after a Malian security source claimed that the one-eyed terrorist had left Mali for a new base in the Libyan desert.
“For some time, we have had evidence that Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the most dangerous Algerian Islamists, who operated in northern Mali, has gone to Libya to avoid being arrested or killed,” the source told AFP.
“From the Libyan territory, he intends to control the entire Sahel,” the source added.
The information was confirmed by a security source in Niger and another close to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
Belmokhtar (also known as Khaled Abou El Abbas, or Laaouar) is the former al-Qaeda emir behind last year’s deadly siege at Algeria’s In Amenas gas complex, as well as attacks in Niger.
In a bid to boost ranks and expand terrain, he attached his brigade to the Mali-based terror group MUJAO.
“Even if he has retreated to Libya, he is still masterminding deadly operations in northern Mali,” Malian analyst El Hadj Konate said.
Last June, the Rewards for Justice Programme offered $5 million dollars (3.7 million euros) for information leading to Belmokhtar’s capture, the analyst pointed out.
However, if he is in southern Libya, “he has all the time he needs to regroup his forces because this is a lawless area”, Konate added.
Belmokhtar survived the international military intervention in northern Mali, but the country’s “hunt for jihadists continues”, Malian journalist Louise Diallo told Magharebia.
“A huge patrol in the regions of Timbuktu in the north-west and Kidal in the north-east led to the arrest this week of several people suspected of belonging to terrorist movements,” she said.
“In reality, even though these arrests have given the population psychological reassurance that things are moving forward and progressing, they are just a tiny part of the work that needs to be done in the region,” the Malian reporter added.
In neighbouring Niger, Belmokhtar is also cause for concern.
“Here in Niger, we are still not ready to forget May 23rd, when a double attack was carried out on a military base and a French-operated uranium mine in the north of the country, claiming the lives of several dozen people,” journalist Hamad Oumarou said.
“We have a long border with Libya…and the country is in chaos. Southern Libya has become a meeting-place for all terrorists of the region,” he said.
To prevent the recruiting of terrorists, Niger “has been working to boost security and development in the north of the country, where inhabitants, especially the Touaregs, say they have been marginalised”, he added.
Zarami Abba Kiari, a spokesman for the ruling party in Niger, confirmed that the country’s youth population was at risk.
“Since Islam is dominant in our country, it is easy for these evil forces to infiltrate Niger’s young people,” Kiari said.
Niger’s interior minister recently called on France and the United States to help “eradicate the terrorist threat” in Libya.
Southern Libya has become “an incubator for terrorist groups”, Interior Minister Massoudou Hassoumi told RFI last month.
Earlier, the chief of staff of the French armed forces suggested that an international operation in the region could avert the creation “of a new centre of gravity of terrorism”.
