Slain al-Qaeda Commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar ‘Alive’

Jihadist and Algerian al-Qaeda commander, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, reported slain by Chadian troops, is alive, according to the monitoring service, SITE.

An unidentified contributor to the US-based monitoring service informed various forums on the militant website that Belmokhtar was "alive and well and leading the battles himself."

Reuters, citing SITE reported the participant said in a message that the possible mastermind of Algerian hostage crisis, Belmokhtar, would soon issue a statement confirming the news. But, the contributor did not inform about how he learnt the news of Belmokhtar's status.

SITE said Ahrar Press, an Arabic media organization, reported that Belmokhtar's death claims were denied by a source in the militant group.

Several reports in the past claimed Belmokhtar to be dead. Chad claimed Saturday that its troops killed Belmokhtar in the same place in Mali where they killed another senior Saharan field commander, Adelhamid Abou Zeid, a few days ago.

But according to The Independent newspaper, defence officials in France said they have received no confirmation on the killings of Belmokhtar and Abou Zeid. Also the French experts on radical Islamist movements doubted the claims of the deaths of the senior al-Qaeda commanders. They pointed that the militants are quick to acknowledge the deaths of their leaders and call them as "martyrs."

"We know Belmokhtar has not been in the area for months. How did he get through the French and Chadian forces which have been surrounding the mountains? This is the eighth time he has been reported killed. I would be very surprised if it is true," Professor Jeremy Keenan, a British social anthropologist and an expert on the Sahel region, told The Independent.  

If the deaths of Belmokhtar and Abou Zeid are confirmed, the leadership of al-Qaeda in Mali would be erased, raising concerns over the fate of the French hostages possibly held by the group in the country.

The hostages are a retaliation, as pledged by the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), against the assault by France on its fighters. France claimed the assault was to stop Mali, its former colony, from becoming a launch pad for wider al-Qaeda attacks, reported Reuters.

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