Mokhtar Belmokhtar

Belmokhtar became interested in jihad as a schoolboy.[6] In 1991, at the age of 19, he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight with the mujahadeen against the Afghan Communist government in the Civil War in Afghanistan.[16] He trained in al-Qaeda's Afghan camps at Khalden and Jalalabad.[21]

Belmokhtar lost his left eye in the 1990s while mishandling explosives. He wore a false eye in its place after that.[6][22][23][24]

He returned in 1993 to his native Algeria. There, he joined the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), an extremist Islamist organisation dedicated to overthrowing the Algerian government and replacing it with an Islamic state. He fought in the long and bloody Algerian Civil War to overthrow the Algerian government.[8] The GIA massacred civilians, sometimes wiping out entire villages.[25] Belmokhtar's fierce reputation earned him prestige with the GIA, and he quickly rose to the rank of commander. However, as the GIA began to splinter and fall apart in the late 1990s, Belmokhtar left the organization.[26][27]

In 1998, Belmokhtar joined a new splinter group, the militant Algeria-based Islamist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), later known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).[28][29] Its goal was to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state, and its members carried out suicide bombings against Algerian government targets.[8][30][31] Soon, he became an effective GSPC field commander.[32] He went to Tamanrasset, Algeria, to raise money for jihad. He gradually established an elaborate smuggling network in the ninth region, covering southern Algeria where many of the most profitable smuggling routes exist.[32][33]

He smuggled cigarettes, drugs, stolen cars, diamonds, and people, using the money to buy weapons to supply insurgent groups. He also kidnapped for ransom dozens of Westerners, including diplomats, aid workers, doctors, and tourists from France, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada.[8][34] The kidnappings are believed to have netted him what the US State Department estimated as $50 million in ransoms for the Europeans.[19] The global intelligence company Stratfor reported that Belmokhtar commanded an estimated $3 million per European captive.[8][35][36] In 2003, for example, he is believed to have received $6.5 million in ransom money for the return of 32 tourists taken captive in the Sahara Desert.[8][37]

In 2003, the U.S. military had Belmokhtar under surveillance in the desert in northern Mali.[38] Military commanders suggested launching a missile airstrike against him.[38] But Vicki Huddleston, the U.S. Ambassador to Mali at the time, vetoed the operation, arguing that Belmokhtar was not important enough to risk the possible repercussions.[38] General Charles Wald wanted to provide information to Algeria and Mali so they could act on their own, but was refused permission by civilian U.S. leaders.[38]

In June 2005, Belmokhtar and his men attacked a Mauritanian military garrison in El Mreiti.[32] They killed at least 15 Mauritanian soldiers, and captured a significant number of weapons.[32]

Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb area of operations

By the time GSPC developed into Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2006, Belmokhtar's reputation as a hardened fighter, leader, and financier gained him standing with the emir Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud (a.k.a. Abdelmalek Droukdel). He was appointed as a commander of his own brigade of AQIM.[8] Belmokhtar's unit was particularly effective in Mauritania, where it was responsible for several armed attacks and kidnappings (See 2007 killing of French tourists in Mauritania).

In 2008, his men kidnapped the Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, who were working for the United Nations, and held them for 130 days.[22][31][36][39]

In 2011, his men attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador in Mauritania, engaging in a drive by shooting of the Israeli embassy and shooting a nightclub that Belmokhtar claimed the ambassador had been in moments earlier.[10]

AQIM is thought to be the wealthiest al-Qaeda branch, after having gained ransoms of tens of millions of dollars for the release of kidnapped western hostages.[35][40]

As Belmokhtar's power and prestige grew, Wadoud began to view him as a threat to his own power. Wadoud gave more responsibility to Belmokhtar's rival commander, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, to deflect Belmokhtar's growing authority in Algeria and Mali.[31] In late 2012, Belmokhtar was either removed or chose to quit AQIM.[17] Andy Morgan of The Independent opined that Belmokthar was ousted by Wadoud due to his "fractious behaviour".[41]

According to the Associated Press, a letter addressed to Belmokhtar ("Abu Khaled"), signed by the 14-member Shura Council of AQIM and dated 3 October, details "in page after scathing page" complaints that he "didn't answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders. Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal".[42] The letter describes a delegation sent to contact Belmokhtar that spent three years lost in the desert and then disintegrated without having reached him.[43]

It criticizes his plan to resign and start a separate organization taking orders from al-Qaida central headquarters not AQIM.

Your letter ... contained some amount of backbiting, name-calling and sneering, ... We refrained from wading into this battle in the past out of a hope that the crooked could be straightened by the easiest and softest means. ... But the wound continued to bleed, and in fact increasingly bled, until your last letter arrived, ending any hope of stanching the wound and healing it.[42]

Why do the successive emirs of the region only have difficulties with you? You in particular every time? Or are all of them wrong and brother Khaled is right?[44]

AP states the letter, which was found "inside a building formerly occupied" by Belmokhtar fighters in Mali, has been authenticated by three different counterterrorism experts.[42]

In 2003, the United Nations designated Belmokhtar as an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist and the US Treasury Department listed him as a financier of a terrorist organization.[45][46] In 2004, an Algerian court sentenced him in absentia to lifetime imprisonment for forming "terrorist" groups, robbery, detention, and use of illegal weapons.[47] In 2007, another Algerian court sentenced him to death for forming terrorist groups, carrying out armed attacks, kidnapping foreigners, and importing and trafficking in illegal weapons.[48] In 2008, an Algerian court convicted and sentenced him to death for murdering 13 customs officers.[22] In 2013, a new organization was classified as a terrorist group.[49]

Belmokhtar formed and commanded his own jihadist group, the Islamist al-Mulathameen (Masked) Brigade, or al-Mua'qi'oon Biddam (Those who Sign with Blood) Brigade. Like Wadoud, he continues to pledge allegiance to and take direction from al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri.[6][50][51][52][53] His group allied with another Al Qaeda splinter group, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.[17] By mid-January 2013, the two groups held more than a dozen Western hostages.[25]

On 16 January 2013, in the In Aménas hostage crisis, members of Belmokhtar's new brigade attacked the Tiguentourine gas field near In Aménas, Algeria, and took more than 800 hostages.[54] He justified the attack as a reprisal for the French intervention that had begun in Mali days before.[55][56]

Algerian forces made an assault and rescued hundreds of hostages. During the conflict, at least 39 hostages were killed, some executed with a bullet to the head by the Brigade.[54][57] Algerian special forces killed 29 members of the Brigade and captured three, according to the Algerian government.[58][59] In a video, Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for the attack, saying: "We are behind the blessed daring operation in Algeria... We did it for al-Qaida".[60]

British Special Air Service and Special Reconnaissance Regiment special forces, French special forces, and American units were mobilised to locate Belmokhtar.[61][62] A bounty of $100,000 has been placed on him.[63]

French and Chadian forces killed Abou Zeid in northern Mali on 25 February 2013. His death has been confirmed by several sources.[64][65]

Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for another terrorist attack on 23 May 2013. In this attack, a French-owned uranium mine in Arlit, Niger, as well as a military base 150 miles away in Agadez, were attacked by suicide bombers with truck bombs. Experts saw no reason to doubt the claim of responsibility. Anouar Boukhars of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace saw the bombing as retaliation for the earlier French intervention in the Northern Mali conflict.[13]

In June 2013, the U.S. government announced a "$5 million reward for information leading to his location".[66]

In August 2013 a communique on the Mauritanian news agency ANI announced the fusion of Belmokhtar's group with MUJAO, another Al Qaida offshoot to form the Al Mourabitoun group.[67] In May 2015, a portion of the group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),[68] however Belmokhtar, who had repeatedly pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, issued a statement rejecting this change of allegiance.[69]

On 20 November 2015, France named him likely responsible for the 2015 Bamako hotel attack.[70]