Al Qaeda's North African
arm said it had beheaded a French hostage in retaliation for France's
intervention in Mali, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported on Tuesday, citing
a commander for the group.
In what ANI reported was a telephone call to the
agency, which has close links to Islamist militants, the commander said
Philippe Verdon had been beheaded on March 10 "in response to the French
military intervention in the north of Mali", ANI reported. Verdon was one
of two French hostages kidnapped in the northern Mali town of Hombori in
November 2011. The French foreign ministry declined to comment.
Another 14 French hostages are detained in Western
African, including seven believed to be held in the Sahel by Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its affiliates. One of AQIM's leaders, Mokhtar
Belmokhtar, had pledged revenge after France launched a campaign in January to
dislodge the group and other Islamist militants who had hijacked a Tuareg
rebellion in the Sahel nation 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 pocket hideouts in the
mountainous region of northern Mali. The AQIM commander described Verdon as a
French spy.
He said that French President Francois Hollande
"bore the responsibility for the remaining hostages". When asked by
the agency whether Belmokhtar had been killed, he neither denied nor confirmed
it. There have been conflicting reports on whether Belmokhtar was killed in the
French military campaign against the rebels.
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