The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat “GSPC”, also known as “AQIM”, led by Abdelamalek Droudkel (Abou Mosab Abdelouadoud) threatened to execute their British hostage if henchman Abu Qatada is not set free, according to a statement posted on Al Qaeda’s websites.

• Droudkel demands the release of  Palestinian “Abou Qatada who is detained in the British detention center of “Long Martin”.
• The terrorist group set a 20 days deadline, which started Saturday the date of the statement issuance, to respond to its demand.
• This is the second of the kind since the kidnapping of six westerners in the Niger Sahara. The terrorist group adopted the operation and identified its demands, including the release of fellows who are detain in various jails, before keeping silent several months in order to prepare for negotiations that are likely underway to release them.
• Four hostages were released last week end including representative of the UN to Niger, a Canadian, two Swiss tourists and a German woman in mysterious circumstances, while two British and a Swiss hostages are still detained.
• Droudkel’s terrorist group tried to show that the kidnapping operation, which culminated in the release of four fellows, succeeded, and the news were announced superficially without any details about the hostages identities, thing that raises many questions about the reality of these news, in light of the presence of definite information that the four hostages were detained by the “Masked Battalion” led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar known as Al Aouar, former leader of the ninth region before he withdrew from the Salafist Group.
• Release of the hostages came after negotiations brokered by the Malian mediation in return for the release of two fellows of Belmokhtar who were arrested in Mali carrying a Mauritanian citizenship. The operation was days after Mrs Shemkha, Belmokhtar’s mother, moved to his residence north of Mali.
• Previously, Belmokhtar recalled the four hostages from the bandits in the Sahel region who worked as “mercenaries” of the terrorist groups through kidnapping and selling their hostages, while “Tarek Ben Ziad Battallion” led by Hamadou Obeid known as Abdelhamid Abou Zeid in coordination with Yahia Abou Amar or Yahia Jawadi, leader of the Sahara were able to get the two British and Swiss tourists through buying them from this bandits.