Al-Qaeda's branch in north Africa has denied that jihadi leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in a US air strike in Libya this week.
"In the face of these fallacies, and so that we do not leave our Muslim nation as prey to these lies," the statement issued by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said, using a nom de guerre for Belmokhtar, "the jihadi commander Khaled Abou Abbas is still alive and kicking and wandering the land of God."
It was the second such statement denying that Belmokhtar, the man behind the 2013 seizure of an Algerian gas plant that left 38 foreign hostages dead, had been killed. The first, which came on Thursday, was published online by Al Mourabitoun, a group affiliated with Belmokhtar.
The statement by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, also on Thursday, appeared on Twitter. Al Mourabitoun released its message on a Mauritanian website that Belmokhtar has frequently used to claim attacks, including his signature act of terrorism, the attack on the BP-operated gas installation at Ain Amenas in southern Algeria.
Target of the strike
US officials have confirmed that Belmokhtar was the target of the strike, which was carried out Sunday by US F-15E fighter jets. At the same time, they expressed caution over his fate, saying that forensic evidence was needed to declare with certainty that he had been killed.
Libyans near the scene of the strike in Adjabiya, an enclave on the Mediterranean Sea about 90 miles south of Benghazi, reported that the bodies of people killed in the attack were charred beyond recognition, making identification unlikely in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.
Within days, however, jihadis, including a cell in the Libyan town of Derna known to be in contact with Belmokhtar’s group, issued a list of the dead that did not include the militant leader’s name.
Al-Qaeda-linked groups typically herald the deaths of their fighters in the belief that they have been martyred and have earned a place in paradise.
Belmokhtar, an Algerian who fought in the civil war there, was a commander of al-Qaeda’s branch in North Africa until late 2012, when he split off to create his own group, which he said would report directly to Ayman al-Zawahri, the Pakistan-based commander in chief of al-Qaeda.
In French intelligence circles, Belmokhtar earned the nickname "the Uncatchable" because of the number of times he had been falsely declared dead. Rudolph Atallah, a terrorism expert who has tracked Belmokhtar since 2003, compares news of his death to "an Elvis sighting". "The guy has at least nine lives," said Mr Atallah. (New York Times service)