World Peace News: Top Stories

Niger kidnappings show group getting bolder
by Rukmini Callimachi

The Associated Press Translate This Article
23 September 2010

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - To kidnap seven foreigners from inside their homes, al-Qaida-linked gunmen in northern Niger forced their way past the security cordon of one of the world's most heavily guarded mining towns.

The assailants made their way through streets patrolled by 350 soldiers, past the gate of a secure residential area and the security guards standing in front of the foreigners' homes.

The boldness of last week's raid near a French-run uranium mine underscores the reach of a terror group formed just four years ago, and whose growing footprint has now turned entire regions of Africa into no-go zones for foreigners.

'It shows a new level of brazenness,' said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorist activity. 'Here they are carrying this out in an area that is indoors and well-guarded, rather than in a remote area where there is less risk of getting caught.'

At least a dozen foreigners including Spanish, Swiss, British and Canadian nationals have been kidnapped by al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, over the past several years. But in each of those cases, the victims were snatched outdoors in remote locations.

A group of four European tourists was returning from a Tuareg cultural festival in northeastern Mali when the attackers shot out the tires of their 4-by-4. A convoy of Spanish aid workers came under attack on a stretch of road in Mauritania where they had gone to deliver supplies.

Last Thursday, militants abducted five French citizens along with one person from Togo and another employee from Madagascar in the town of Arlit in northern Niger.

Areva spokeswoman Fleur Floquet says that 350 of Niger's troops patrol Arlit following an agreement brokered between the French company and the government of Niger. They are bolstered by 150 private security guards employed by Areva.

She says the assailants made it across the well-guarded town, as well as past the secured gate of the VIP residential area where foreign employees live in private villas. She says both the gate and each of the villas are protected by a security guard who would have had to be neutralized in order for the attackers to enter.

AQIM claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio message released days later. The French government has been flying reconnaissance planes over the vast desert and a contingent of 80 French soldiers has been dispatched to Niamey, Niger's capital.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin says authorities believe the hostages were likely taken to northern Mali, the terror group's main operating base and where previous European captives have been taken.

On Thursday, Morin said the French government is willing to speak to al-Qaida's North African wing in order to find a solution to the crisis.

The abductions cap an astounding arc for the terror group founded in 1998 as the Salafist Group of Call and Combat, an Algeria-based terror cell whose activities were largely contained to its nation of origin. In 2006, the group brokered an alliance with al-Qaida and changed its name to reflect it had become a franchise of the global terror network. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's lieutenant, issued a message calling the alliance 'a blessed union.'

'AQIM is going to continue to grow. We've know that for some time and put the warning out,' said Rudolph Atallah, who recently retired from his post as Africa Counterterrorism Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and who heads private security firm White Mountain Research. 'They are expanding beyond their territory.

In just four years, the militants have made entire swaths of northwestern Africa off-bounds to tourists.

The U.S., French, British and Swiss embassies now warn against travel to northern Mauritania, northern Niger and northern Mali, including such Lonely Planet staples as Timbuktu. The famous Dakar Rally, a trans-Sahara automobile race that for decades drew racing enthusiasts to Dakar, was suspended in 2008. Last month, the U.S. Embassy warned Americans not to attend the Festival au Desert, a popular music festival that used to draw throngs of foreigners to Essakane, a desert outpost in Mali.

'Clearly the threat has grown in recent years,' said Richard Downie, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'This hostage-taking in Niger has seriously escalated the situation.'

The fact that the gunmen were able to pierce the town's multiple security layers and quickly identify the villas housing the foreigners suggests they had help from inside, according to Areva security consultant Jacques Hogard who spoke to RTL radio in France.

Hogard says he learned that the terrorists had been tipped off that a delegation from France was heading to Imouraren, a town near Arlit that is the site of the largest uranium deposit in Africa. The delegation came earlier than expected due to a change in their escort arrangements, Hogard told RTL. He says the attackers when they realized they had missed the delegation set out to find a secondary target.

'They were informed in detail of the arrival of this delegation. How do you explain that?' he told RTL. 'It's clear that they had access to information from inside Areva.'

French nuclear manufacturer Areva said there were recently visitors at another site in northern Niger, but it declined to comment on Hogard's remarks.

AQIM already has made millions of dollars by kidnapping Westerners for ransom, and the money has been used to expand the group's operations.

'There's a higher degree of cognizance by these criminals that you can kidnap white people and sell them down the line to the highest bidder. A chain of incentives has been created,' said Mike McGovern, an expert on Africa and an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University.

Not all abductions by al-Qaida's North Africa branch have ended in ransoms though. British hostage Edwin Dyer was beheaded by the group in 2009.

And in July, the group said it had executed a 78-year-old French aid worker it had taken hostage three months before, saying the killing was in retaliation for the deaths of six al-Qaida members in a French-backed military operation against the group.

According to a transcript provided by SITE Intelligence Group, the head of AQIM issued a message saying French President Nicolas Sarkozy 'had opened the door of hell.'

___

Associated Press writer Artis Henderson in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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