Islamist militias merge, declare jihad on France

An Al Qaeda-linked
militia founded by wanted Islamist
commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar
announced on Thursday it had joined forces
with another armed group to take revenge
against France for its military offensive in
Mali.
Belmokhtar’s Mauritania-based Al-
Mulathameen Brigade (The Brigade of the
Masked Ones) and the Mali-based Movement
for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa
(MUJAO) said they had joined forces under a
single banner to unite Muslims across the
region.
“Your brothers in MUJAO and Al-
Mulathameen announce their union and
fusion in one movement called Al-
Murabitoun to unify the ranks of Muslims
around the same goal, from the Nile to the
Atlantic,” the groups said in a statement
published by Mauritanian news agency ANI.
Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Algerian former
commander of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM), allegedly masterminded a
siege in January of an Algerian gas plant in
which 38 hostages, including three
Americans, died.
Branded “The Uncatchable”, Belmokhtar is
also thought to have been behind twin car
bombings in Niger in May that left at least 20
people dead.
The Algeria siege and the Niger assaults
were said to have been carried out in
retaliation for France’s military intervention
launched in January against Islamist groups
in Mali.
Belmokhtar, who broke away from AQIM in
2012 and was involved in the fighting
against Chadian forces in Mali, was reported
to have been killed in action in March.
The reports, however, were never confirmed
and it is believed that he remains at large.
He has been designated a foreign terrorist
by the United States since 2003, with the
State Department offering a $5 million
reward for information leading to his
capture.
MUJAO is thought to be led by Mauritanian
ethnic Tuareg Ahmed Ould Amer, who goes
by the nom de guerre “Ahmed Telmissi”.
The group broke away from AQIM in
mid-2011 with the apparent goal of
spreading jihad further into areas of west
Africa not within AQIM’s scope.
It was one of a number of Islamist groups
that occupied northern Mali last year,
imposing a brutal interpretation of Islamic
sharia law characterised by amputations,
beatings and executions, before being
ousted by the French-led military
intervention.
The statement said the two men had signed
a document announcing their merger and
ceding command of the new movement to
“another personality”, without revealing the
identity of the new leader, according to ANI.
The statement said the jihadist movement in
the region was now “stronger than ever”
and threatened France and its allies,
promising “to rout their troops”.
Al-Murabitoun — an Arabic phrase meaning
“the sentinels” — was the name given to a
Berber dynasty of Morocco which formed an
empire in the 11th century.
Today the name is used by a Nasserist
political party in Lebanon.