France declares war against Al Qaeda after hostage killed

In May, the US and France deployed special forces to train local armies. Some French NGOs are privately urging France to tread carefully in its former colonies. They also say that official admonitions for tourists to stay away from the vast Sahel desert region is misguided since Al Qaeda operates in the north, and is not present in the impoverished southern area that depends on tourism.

"We are going to stay and carry on," says Remi Hemryck of Paris-based SOS Sahel International, an aid group that works in the region. "Most of the insecurity is in the northern desert fringe... Here, the main problem is banditry, not Al Qaeda. The Sahel is under a famine which nobody mentions. Fifteen to 20 million people are directly affected."

A senior international aid official who asked not to be named said that France must be careful to uphold "international law and humanitarian norms" when cooperating with North African militaries, in order to avoid creating more support for the movements. So far, “you don’t have an Afghanistan effect in North Africa with an [ethnic] Pashtun population to rely on. In Niger and Mali the militants are not supported by the local populations.”

Germaneau was kidnapped in Niger, and then was moved. On May 14 French authorities received “an extremely vague demand” for the liberation of an unspecified set of prisoners, Fillon said, and on July 12 got an ultimatum stating that Germaneau would be killed in 15 days.

Related:

• Blog: In N. Africa, Al Qaeda offshoot claims six Western hostages
• Mali moves music festival as tourism threatened by Al Qaeda threat
• Blog: Mauritania hunts Al Qaeda militants
• Al Qaeda rises in West Africa

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