A private report from Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika to Barack Obama contained evidence that the same al Qaeda under the same Egyptian commander committed the Benghazi US consulate and Algerian gas field attacks, and implicated Qatar in bankrolling subversive and terrorist operations to topple the Algerian and Libyan regimes.

A private report from Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika to Barack Obama contained evidence that the same al Qaeda under the same Egyptian commander committed the Benghazi US consulate and Algerian gas field attacks, and implicated Qatar in bankrolling subversive and terrorist operations to topple the Algerian and Libyan ...

A common X factor is uncovered by DEBKA-Net-Weekly, in its latest issue out next Friday. It connects last September’s terrorist attack and murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three staffers at the US consulate in Benghazi with the terrorist siege at the Algerian In Amenas gas field. There, at least 38 Western civilians died and an unknown number are still missing.

To discover the perpetrators - and their paymaster – don’t miss that issue.
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France’s motives for its intervention in Mali are variously interpreted as a genuine wish to liberate northern Mali from Islamist terrorists and forming a base of attack against Europe, or as defense of French economic interests in Mali’s rich natural resources.

Middle East leaders note the absence of an American military foothold in any of the region’s trouble spots, be they Syria, Mali, Algeria or Yemen. Obama is seen to have stepped back from the Middle East and turned his face toward the Pacific.

Barack Obama’s disinclination to intervene in the Mali and Algerian gas field crises is a mark of his evolving isolationist policy for the United States. debkafile:  Even though the US homeland may not be in immediate peril from the two episodes, Al Qaeda’s interconnecting tentacles cannot be ignored:  Seven years ago on July 7, jihadist suiciders blew up London trains and a bus with explosives provided by the very Al Qaeda cells of Sahel Desert which today occupy Mali and this week struck the Algerian gas field.

The Al Qaeda group which seized hostages from 10 nations at the remote Algerian gas field in In Aminas Wednesday, Jan. 16, has addressed its first demand to the United States: The release of two American hostages for two high-profile Islamist terrorists jailed in the US: Egyptian Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Blind Sheikh convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Pakistani-American neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, convicted for trying to kill US troops and FBI agents in Afghanistan in 2009. Algerian forces still battle terrorists holed up with hostages..

The Algerian hostage disaster was the outcome of French anti-terror intervention in Mali which in turn developed from the messy ending of the Libyan war. By carrying out two counter terror operations – in Somali and Mali – on one day, France and the US brought together the most ...

The consensus of US and Western intelligence chiefs at their closed door meeting in Langley was that NATO should count itself out of further military interventions in Arab uprisings in the coming year – especially in Syria - after its mistakes in Libya. Reliance on Turkey was seen as a letdown. The Yemeni crisis was judged more dangerous to broader regions of the Middle East and East Africa than the Syrian conflict.

Muammar Qaddafi's ouster has opened Tripoli's door to al Qaeda, a covert component of which is harbored by the rebel NTC. The jihads are not averse to playing both sides of the Libyan dividing in hooking up with Qaddafi too. This will depend on AQIM's broader interests in North ...