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...Extremists associated with or organized by AQIM have nearly free rein in the vast territory sweeping the southern flanks of Morocco, Algeria and Libya, and over the northern sections of Mauritania, Mali and Niger. The French official says around 150 fighters traveling in four-wheel trucks move about freely in the region, running munitions and materials, training new recruits, and abducting and holding any kidnap victims. Indeed, officials are virtually certain AQIM has transported Kloiber and Ebner to northern Mali or southern Algeria, the same area where the GSPC kept 31 captured European tourists hidden in 2003 until Germany allegedly...
...kidnapping comes after the December killing of four French tourists in Mauritania in what intelligence officials believe was a bungled abduction attempt. In September an AQIM plot to seize two French nationals in Algiers was thwarted by security services, and the same month, a group of Italian civil engineers were captured but ultimately released in northern Mali. The growing risk of abduction or terrorist violence by jihadists in the region ultimately caused the organizers of the annual Dakar Rally to cancel the cross-desert off-road car race for the first time since was launched...
...Algeria's Salafist Group for Combat and Preaching (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda under the AQIM name. AQIM promised to internationalize its jihad against the Algiers regime by striking out at foreign enemies, notably Europeans, and adopting trademark al-Qaeda terror and communication techniques. As part of that, French intelligence officials say, AQIM and its sympathizers in North Africa are using kidnapping to both call attention to its cause and raise money...
...thinking is that because they've demonstrated their abilities in all the other aspects of terrorism - bombings, shootings, logistics, organization and recruitment - they now need to show they can humiliate and intimidate the enemy through kidnapping too," says a French intelligence official. "They also know abducting Westerners draws lots of media attention to them, and more often than not ends up with big ransom payments that help fund more jihadist activity...
...France and the U.S. both have a military presence in the region to combat terror. The French official says Paris and Washington, actively working with allied north African governments, have studied air and land strikes capable of eliminating AQIM in the area. So far, the source says, they have decided that the group's nuisance does not merit massive use of force...