Another bad guy down

Chad Said to Have Killed Mastermind of Algerian Attack

By THE NEW YORK TIMES, NYT

DAKAR, Senegal — Chad’s military said Saturday that its soldiers in Mali had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of the January seizure of an Algerian gas plant that left 37 hostages dead.

Mr. Belmokhtar’s death was announced on state television in Chad, but has not been confirmed elsewhere.

“On Saturday, March 2, at noon, Chadian armed forces operating in northern Mali completely destroyed a terrorist base,” Chad’s armed forces spokesman, Gen. Zacharia Gobongue, said in a statement on national television. “The toll included several dead terrorists, including their leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar.”

Soldiers from Chad are fighting Islamist militants in Mali as part of an international force led by France that is seeking to oust the militants from northern Mali.

The French Defense Ministry spokesman, Col. Thierry Burkhard, said the ministry had no information on the claim by Chad and could not confirm it.

The January raid in Algeria was carried out in reprisal for the French intervention in Mali and for Algeria’s support for the French war against Islamist militants in the region, Mr. Belmokhtar’s spokesmen said at the time.

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