MALI / Al Qaeda poses its conditions
The terrorists demand the release of some al Qaeda members held in Spanish and Mauritanian jails in exchange for hostages Spanish.
Good progress has been made in negotiations for the release of hostages kidnapped in Spain since late November on the axis connecting Nouakchott and Nouadhibou and transported to the desert of Mali, according to security sources based in Nouakchott.
However, no details supplied about the time and place of release of the three Spanish humanitarian whose abduction was claimed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. In another development, sources in Mali maintain that an official in Mali, close to the negotiations with AQIM, has revealed that substantial progress has been made in the talks with the kidnappers.
The same sources said that Iyad Haj, a former Tuareg rebel, now Malian consul in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, participated in the negotiations. Iyad Haj is known to have obtained in 2003, the release of more than 30 Western hostages in northern Mali. According to experts, AQIM may request the release of some members of Al Qaeda prisoners in Spanish jails and Mauritania in exchange for hostages Spanish. A series of kidnappings has marked the security environment in Mali and Mauritania. Two countries that have lived since 2008 at a rate of subversive activities, signed Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb. If Mali is often confronted with a large safe instability for some time, Mauritania's first.
Six hostages were being held in northern Mali by the kidnappers of Al Qaeda. A French, three Spaniards and two Italians. Through his spokesman, the terrorist organization has informed the country of origin of hostages they will soon be informed of his claims. Along with this news, the government authorities of the countries have been kidnapped foreign nationals still maintain contacts in order to identify the main areas of cooperation that could free the hostages.
It is understood that investigators Mauritanian countries have been kidnapped three Spaniards and two Italians would be on a track, especially since the arrest of one of the captors of two Italians, a Abderrahmane Ben Meddoui member of a tribe in northern Mali.
But Mali is it able to intervene to free the hostages?
For the moment nothing has filtered out, except that three intermediate conducting investigations in this direction. The question is whether the France, Spain and Italy follow the rules of the UN, they do not yield to terrorist blackmail by paying a ransom against the release of hostages.
The ransom kidnappings are the only way and the only alternative for survival. The terrorist organization has now decided to operate on land where aspects, economic, social, political and security follow a logical and proven instability where all ingredients are conducive to crime. By investing the Sahel, Al Qaeda strategists express their serious intention to Afghanization the region by using it as a base to secure their future operations, directed particularly against countries like Algeria and Tunisia.
Our country is in this sense, the first target of the international terrorist organization. In order to maintain a kind of encirclement against Algeria, al Qaeda has engaged for years in a vast operation of indoctrination and recruitment in Mauritania, Mali and Niger to the same. In addition to the conditions they have, these countries offer to Al Qaeda every opportunity to better control a strategic area of several million square kilometers.
A multiracial and multicultural space where there are still many problems of ethnic, that western powers have never managed to master. The United States, France and to a lesser extent Spain and Italy, despite their willingness to fight against terrorism, have never managed to overcome some of their differences. This gap allows the terrorists of Al Qaeda to operate undisturbed.
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