According to jihadist sources in southern Libya, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, formerly a leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was in southern Libya on the eve of the Agadez suicide bombing. The attack against the northern Niger city in late May was carried out by groups connected with the Al-Qaeda-affiliated organisation. Belmokhtar split off from AQIM to found his own group, known as Katiba Al-Mulathamin (the Masked Brigade), whom he worked with for six months until he later founded Al-Mawaqqiun bil-Damm (the Signed in Blood Brigade). The Movement for Oneness and Islamic Jihad (MUJAO) and the Signed in Blood Brigade claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing 23 May, targeting a uranium mine operated by the French-owned Arifa nuclear power firm in Arlit, and a Nigerien military barracks in Agadez. The government of Niger reported that 23 people died in the attacks — 18 Nigerien soldiers, one civilian and the four suicide bombers. The Libyan jihadist sources that spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity said that the former AQIM leader had been in Libya only days before the Agadez attack and that he had met with members of the Signed in Blood Brigade, the Masked Brigade, and MUJAO, as well as with a number of Libyan jihadists affiliated with AQIM. The sources said that Belmokhtar entered Libya via a “rugged secret path” at the juncture of the Libyan, Nigerien and Algerian borders, and that Libyan jihadists familiar with this territory had facilitated his crossing into an area near the Acacus Mountains, where he had remained until three days before the attacks in northern Niger. Although the Libyan jihadists refused to disclose the names of the persons who had organised Belmokhtar's clandestine transit into southern Libya, they said that he had been smuggled in with the cognisance of Libyan Islamists in the north, in Tripoli, Sirte and Derna. The sources would not disclose the names of these Islamists either. They stressed that Libyan jihadist elements had not been involved in the attacks in northern Niger. However, some of these elements had offered logistical aid to the perpetrators, such as fuel, weapons and guides to lead them through the desert paths up to the Libyan border with Niger, at some point to the west of the Umm Al-Aranib crossing. The sources maintained that no Libyan jihadist belonged to the Belmokhtar group or had ever taken part in one of its operations. Nevertheless, they revealed to the Weekly that the link man between this group and Libyan jihadists is an Algerian called Mohamed Al-Amin Bin Shanab, nicknamed Okasha. They said that Bin Shanab, an active jihadist militant, is able to move freely between the southwestern Libyan town of Ghat and eastern Algeria because of his close connections with influential Libyans due to kin relations between him and a prominent family in Ghat. Bin Shanab has also acted as a middleman in arms sales between Libyan groups and Algerian jihadists across the border. The Weekly sought corroboration and further clarification from other parties in Libya but they refused to comment on this issue. They insisted that they had no connection with Algerian militant groups, in spite of Algerian and Western intelligence reports that suggest the contrary. French forces in northern Mali have been hunting for Belmokhtar since March, when he managed to escape capture during the French military operations in that area. The CIA has posted a $20 million reward for anyone who furnishes information leading to the capture of the Algerian Islamist militant whom the Chadian president had claimed had been killed, along with 28 other terrorists, in a confrontation with Chadian armed forces on 2 March, in Wadi Amititay in the Ifoghas Mountains in northern Mali near the border with Algeria. Masoud Abdel-Qader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, also known as Al-Awar (the One-Eyed) in reference to the fact that he lost an eye during combat with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, ran a massive cigarette-smuggling operation in the Sahara and Sahel region in order to finance his group. The smuggling operation earned him the alias “Mr Marlboro”. Among jihadist groups in that region, he is also known as Khaled Abu Al-Abbas. On 11 March, 32 members of his Signed in Blood Brigade attacked installations at the Tiguentourine gas field near Ain Amenas in southeastern Algeria, taking more than 700 hostages, of whom 37, including foreigners and Algerians, were killed. Algerian Special Forces mounted an operation to free the hostages. It came under heavy international criticism due to the large number of lives lost among the Amenas hostages. In 2012, Belmokhtar announced that he had split off from the Al-Qaeda affiliated Masked Brigade in order to found the Signed in Blood Brigade. However, as noted, members of the Masked Brigade were involved in the Agadez attack that had been staged from southern Libya. On 26 May, Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou stated that the suicide bombers had entered his country from southern Libya, confirming information cited by Nigerien officials in the immediate aftermath of the attack. In a harsh and angry criticism of Libyan officials, President Issoufou said that he had cautioned Libyans after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi not to pursue solutions that would make their country worse than it was before, and that if Libya turned into another Somalia or fell into the hands of extremists that would be worse. Libyan officials claim that they are doing all in their power to bring the difficult situation in the south of their country under control. However, Libya's neighbours still fear that the security situation in Libya is a potential source of instability for their countries. Chadian President Idriss Déby has warned that the influx into Libya of jihadist militants from Mali threatened to destabilise neighbouring countries, adding that Libya is on the verge of explosion. In an interview with Le Figaro on 8 June, Déby said that the situation in the Sahel should not come as a surprise to anyone. He had anticipated this consequence from the outset of the war in Libya, which is what led him, at the time, to urge a formula in accordance with which Gaddafi would be permitted to leave the country and the Libyan people would have the opportunity to engage in a reconciliation process and build democratic institutions. Unfortunately, he said, the jihadists are now doing in Libya what they did in Mali. “Perhaps they will not use the same methods, for they certainly will change their strategy. But they have training camps in Jebel Al-Akhdar and brigades in Benghazi, Tripoli and Sabha, operating in full view of everyone. All Islamist extremists are to be found in Libya today. The international community must wake up and rescue Libya, for otherwise the current operations in Mali will be for nothing.” According to several security experts, in recent months southern Libya has become a stronghold for AQIM and other militant Islamist groups from Mali. The desert expanses in this region offer these groups extensive manoeuvrability over a vast terrain stretching from Morocco to Sudan. They are aided by the lack of priority given to security measures in this area by Libya's new rulers who are caught up in the vicious power struggles of the post-Gaddafi era. At the same time, jihadists in Libya have acquired unprecedented political influence since the fall of Gaddafi, especially given that they control the various security agencies. The jihadists who had been freed from Gaddafi's prisons are also suspected of having dubious relations with militant groups now present in the south and that have recently set their crosshairs on Libya's Sub-Saharan neighbours. Nevertheless, it appears that sharp tensions have surfaced between these groups and their leaders who entered politics in the post-Gaddafi era and have acquired considerable political sway. This may help explain why these groups have begun to collect in the south, whereas they formerly had their camps in Tripoli, Derna, Zintan and Benghazi, where they had larger numbers of followers. It may also help explain why these Libyan groups in the south have strengthened relations with AQIM and its offshoots. Those relations with these organisations, from which hails Mokhtar Belmokhtar, are proving an embarrassment to political leaders in the north. Just as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had arrived in Libya to inspect the premises of the French embassy that had suffered a bomb attack on 23 April, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan left his guest at Tripoli airport in order to undertake a previously unannounced visit to Algeria. According to informed sources, Algerian intelligence agencies delivered intelligence to the Libyan official regarding this incident. When the Libyan prime minister returned to Tripoli two hours later, he issued a stern statement reminding extremists that Libya still fell under Article 7 of the UN Charter, implying that international forces could be brought in to restore security and peace in the country. He had issued this threat on numerous occasions during the crisis surrounding the Political Isolation Law, when militias had laid siege to a number of major government buildings. He had modified his tone towards the militias shortly before the passage of that law, and from the axe of which Zeidan appears to have been spared after having concluded undisclosed deals with militia leaders. Libyans received a hint of the nature of one of these deals during the visit of the Ugandan national football team for a friendship match with its Libyan counterpart. During a banquet hosted for the visiting team by the Libyan ministries of youth and sports, Prime Minister Zeidan announced that he had appointed Fawzi Boukatf, a militia leader who had fought in the 17 February revolution, as Libyan ambassador to Uganda. Of Palestinian origin, Boukatf is a former jihadist militant who had been imprisoned under Gaddafi and released in 2009 in the framework of the reconciliation between Islamists and the Gaddafi regime. Boukatf was the prime suspect in the assassination of General Abdel-Fattah Younis. Commander of the army of revolutionaries during the war against the Gaddafi regime, Younis was assassinated on 28 July 2011. Boukatf also tops the list of those suspected of masterminding the attack against the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012, which killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other US diplomats. One can see Boukatf's ambassadorial appointment as yet another sign of the types of people that are gaining control in post-Gaddafi Libya.
