The French press is reporting that a French tourist and an Algerian guide were kidnapped by armed men today in northern Niger, near the well at In-Abangaret. Also spelled Inabangaret, it’s a stopping place on the Azzouagh plain’s Tahoua/Assamakka/Tama…
Tag Archive for AQIM
AQIM: More hostage stories
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
Philomène Kaboré and her husband Sergio Cicala have given interviews regarding their captivity: she having been released some time ago, and he Friday the 16th. They were taken in Mauritania, near the border with Mali, on…
AQIM: More hostage stories
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
Philomène Kaboré and her husband Sergio Cicala have given interviews regarding their captivity: she having been released some time ago, and he Friday the 16th. They were taken in Mauritania, near the border with…
AQIM: More hostage stories
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
Philomène Kaboré and her husband Sergio Cicala have given interviews regarding their captivity: she having been released some time ago, and he Friday the 16th. They were taken in Mauritania, near the border with Mali, on their way south. Ms. Kaboré says they were kept confined, but treated well. They were not held by the AQIM kidnappers directly but by intermediaries, but were free to walk about in a isolated camp, well fed, and not beaten. The camp itself was so isolated they did not know what country they were in. Does this suggest strength or weakness of their captors? That they have resources and supporters enough that they need not be involved with their prisoners? Or that the AQIM are too hounded to keep a steady and secure base area? Or does it suggest that the AQIM, having begun to pay others to kidnap for them, now are outsourcing the entire operation to smugglers and friendly tribes?
Francafrique: French “FBI” ran the Malian AQIM prisoner release
by Tommy Miles • • 1 Comment
"Intelligence Online" reports that the French internal security agency, the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI) carried out the negotiation with the AQIM for the release of French hostage Pierre Camatte, and sent Bernard…
AQIM: Reports of the travels of the Tiloa attackers
by Tommy Miles • • 1 Comment
Jeune Afrique reports sightings of the AQIM men who attacked the Nigerien army post at Tiloa, in the far north of Tillaberi last week. Apparently the Army knew there was a chance of attack somewhere in the area, having asked for reinforcements two days…
Mali: Release of two of five AQIM hostages
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
Philomena Kabour, the Burkina-Italian wife of Sergio Cicala, kidnapped near in Mauritania was released, along with Alicia Gamez, one of three Catalan aid workers kidnapped north of Nouakchott. All appear to have been taken to a AQIM camp in the remote Saharan north of Mali. Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta (the Catalans kidnapped November 29) and Cicala (kidnapped December 18) remain hostage. There is no word on what was exchanged. Burkina authorities were the intermediaries for Kabour's release.
Mali: Gao Mayor threatens to sell reporters to AQIM. Or not.
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
AFP re-reports the allegations of two Catalan journalists, now safely home. They say that they were threatened with kidnapping and delivery to Al qaeda by the Mayor of Gao, Sadou Harouna Diallo, ally of the President, admirer of the USA and quintessential Big Man. Mayor Diallo tells AFP this is all a misunderstanding.
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Niger: Military post raided on Mali border
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
Reports are coming in of an attack by unknown assailants on the army post at Tiloa, a village around 12km from the Malian border. Several soldiers were killed. North of the more inhabited Zarmaganda plateau, Tiola is a tiny stop in the desert north of Tondikiwindi rural commune, Ouallam Department, Tillabéri Region. This is the same area in which Nigerien forces clashed with alleged AQIM members last year after a Saudi hunting party was attacked. It is west southwest of where tourists were kidnapped (likely by AQIM themselves) before that, including one Briton who was murdered. More prosaically, this area, just north of sedentary agriculture ends, is a prime smuggling location and an east-west transit route of Tuareg and Arab nomads between Gao and the Air mountains. It is also 20-30 km north of an area plagued by recurring conflict between sedentary and nomadic communities that goes back to before the 19th century.
Mali: Crime and guns in the north threaten health work
by Tommy Miles • • 0 Comments
Médecins du Monde Belgium reports that three of their health workers were carjacked in the desert north of Youwarou Cercle, Kidal Region on 2 March. Men armed with AK-47s stole a landrover and abandoned the workers in the desert. The MMB workers were part of a anti-Dracunculiasis (Guinea Worm) clinic in Youwarou. Sadly, such car robberies are not unknown, especially after the wave of weapons that flooded the region during the 2007-2008 insurgency. Similar robberies from aid agencies were reported after the 1990s and the 2006 violence, with cars taken across the border to Mauritania or as far away as Morocco to be sold. While I'm sure someone will blame "terrorists" it seems clear if you give young men guns and no jobs, especially in a region with a centuries old tradition of trade / smuggling, you'll get car robberies. I would hope government might deal with these issues before calling in AFRICOM with their missiles and bombs.