Report of Hostage’s Beheading

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/africa/report-of-hostages-beheading.html

Version 0 of 1.

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (Reuters) — Al Qaeda’s North African arm said on Tuesday that it had beheaded a French hostage in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali, Mauritania’s ANI news agency reported, citing a commander for the group.

ANI reported that in a telephone call to the agency, which has close links to Islamist militants, the commander said the hostage, Philippe Verdon, was beheaded on March 10 “in response to the French military intervention in the north of Mali.”

Mr. Verdon was one of two French hostages kidnapped in Hombori, a town in northern Mali, in November 2011.

The French Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the report, which could not be independently verified.

Fourteen other French hostages are detained in Western Africa, including seven believed to be held by the Qaeda group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and its affiliates.

One militant leader in the region, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, pledged revenge after France began a campaign in January to dislodge Islamist militants who had hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in Mali and seized the northern half of the country.

After driving them from the main cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in a swift nine-week assault, some 1,600 French and Chadian troops began searching for Islamist rebels in their hide-outs in the mountainous region of northern Mali.

The Qaeda commander described Mr. Verdon as a French spy. He said that President François Hollande of France “bore the responsibility for the remaining hostages.”

When asked by the agency whether Mr. Belmokhtar had been killed, the commander neither denied nor confirmed it.

There have been conflicting reports on whether Mr. Belmokhtar was killed in the French military campaign against the rebels.