BOSTON — Mokhtar Belmokhtar — the alleged mastermind of the hostage seizure at BP's Amenas gas facility in eastern Algeria — has long been a formidable and elusive foe.
He is a "one-eyed war veteran with the nickname 'Mr. Marlboro,'" who finances his holy war with cigarette smuggling and hostage taking, the BBC reports. "He acquired the nickname because of his role in cigarette-smuggling across the Sahel region to finance his jihad, now waged under the banner of the Signed-in-Blood Battalion."
Belmokhtar was attracted to jihad by the time he was a secondary school student.
According to the BBC:
Belmokhtar, who kidnapped UN Niger envoy Robert Fowler in December 2008, has operated freely in the region due to a vast local network of supporters, according to an analysis by the Jamestown Foundation:
Belmokhtar claims to be a key link between Algerian extremists and Al Qaeda, Jamestown Foundation adds:
More recently, experts have speculated that Belmokhtar's status within the Islamist hierarchy had fallen. The Guardian reports:
The Islamist fighter's fate was not immediately known after an Algerian raid on Thursday that reportedly led to the death of 35 hostages and 15 militants. But if he is reported to have died in the attack, it will not the first time. Last June officials claimed that he was dead after a raid in the Malian city of Gao.
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