The one-eyed Algerian behind the deadly Burkina Faso attack
The siege at the Splendid Hotel was still underway when the North African branch of al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, which it said was to punish the “disbelieving West” and incite youths to “jihad in the cause of Allah.”
In a series of online messages, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb said the gunmen who struck in Burkina Faso were from the Al-Murabitoon Battalion, a faction led by a one-eyed Algerian already wanted by the RCMP for kidnapping Canadian diplomats.
The desert fox, it seemed, had struck again.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar is a 43-year-old former Algerian soldier who, since emerging from the terrorist training camps of Afghanistan, has roamed the vast Sahel region trying to ignite sectarian war in the name of his militant brand of Islam.
“Belmokhtar unleashed a reign of terror years ago in furtherance of his selfproclaimed goal of waging bloody jihad against the West,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said after filing an indictment against him in federal court in Manhattan in 2013.
But despite a $5-million reward offered by the United States, an Interpol arrest warrant filed by the RCMP and a death sentence handed down in absentia by an Algerian court, the former cigarette smuggler has somehow survived to carry on.
A month ago, his AlMurabitoon Battalion announced it had conducted a joint attack with AQIM that killed at least 21 at the Radisson Blu, a luxury hotel popular among Westerners in Bamako, Mali, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
The attack that began Friday in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, killed at least 28 and wounded twice that many. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday that six Canadians were among the dead but he did not blame any group.
The AQIM statement said the four attackers had struck a hotel “frequented by personnel of the infidel United Nations, in order to remind the cross worshippers about their crimes against our people in Central Africa, Mali, and the rest of the Muslim countries, and to avenge our Prophet,” according to the intelligence company Flashpoint.
Previously, Belmokhtar had been a prolific kidnapper. He was behind the 2008 abduction of Canadians Robert Fowler, a United National special envoy to Niger, and his assistant Louis Guay. They were released after four months, according to some reports after a $1-million ransom was paid.
Early in 2013, he orchestrated a brazen assault on a Norwegian-owned gas plant in Algeria that left 37 dead. Among the attackers were two Canadian terrorists, Xristos Katsiroubas and Ali Medlej of London, Ont., both of whom were killed during the four-day siege.
The latest outrage, the first in Burkina Faso, will likely add urgency to the manhunt for Belmokhtar as well as efforts to dismantle AQIM, which Public Safety Canada calls “a militant Sunni Islamist extremist group” that originated in Algeria.
Coming just a day after a Canadian was killed in a terrorist attack in Jakarta blamed on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the killing of six Quebecers on a humanitarian mission was a reminder that al-Qaida and its regional franchises remain threats.
Since emerging from Algeria in 2006, AQIM has promoted a global jihadist outlook and expanded its reach deeper into Africa, particularly Niger, Mauritania and Mali, the former French colony where Belmokhtar’s faction is now based.
Although a founder of AQIM, Belmokhtar eventually broke with the group to form his own factions, the AlMulathamin Brigade and the “Signers in Blood” Battalion, before returning to the AQIM fold for unknown reasons late last year.
AQIM’s goals are ambitious if not far-fetched: cleansing the region of Western influence, overthrowing “apostate” governments and installing its fanatical interpretation of Islamic law — all the while pledging loyalty to al-Qaida boss Ayman Al Zawahiri.
AQIM was weakened by a 2012 French military operation in northern Mali called Operation Serval but it has bounced back to the extent that it has now killed some 50 people at major hotels in two countries in less than two months.
“After a dramatic downturn in the group’s activities in 2014, a rejuvenated AQIM is demonstrating its expanded reach,” Tim Lister wrote on the CNN website. He called the Burkina Faso attack a sign of the group’s “rejuvenated ambition.”
The terror group has persisted largely by exploiting the instability of the region in which it operates, notably Mali. “Political stability in northern Mali will likely remain elusive for some time, providing space for the extremists to re-establish some safe havens,” the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said in its annual report last year.