Kidnap mastermind arrested

An Algerian terrorist accused of holding 32 Europeans hostage in the Sahara Desert last year has been captured in Chad, according to Germany's federal prosecutor's office.

Ammari Saifi, also known as Abdrrezak al-Para, is in custody with one other man in connection to the abductions in February and March 2003 of German, Austrian, Swiss and Swedish citizens who were traveling in the desert area of southern Algeria, reported Agence France-Presse.

The hostages were seized in separate incidents and held for three to six months.

In May 2003, Algerian army commandos rescued 17 tourists following a four-hour gun battle in which nine of the kidnappers were killed.

In August, 14 hostages were freed by their kidnappers and handed over to officials from Mali after Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi reportedly paid 5 million euros, or about $6 million, to the abductors.

Citing unnamed diplomats who requested anonymity, AFP reported at the time Libya paid the ransom "on its own initiative." The money was transferred through an intermediary chosen by Tripoli.

Germany's ZDF television earlier had reported a Malian negotiator had given ransom money paid by the German government to the hostage-takers, who had demanded $5 million for each of the 14 being held in Mali.

According to Agence France-Presse, the diplomats said the money passed "neither through Malian nor German hands."

The German government refuses to disclose whether a ransom was paid.

As first reported by WorldNetDaily's premium online intelligence newsletter, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the six separate groups of adventure tourists were believed taken captive by the extreme Islamic "Salafist Group for Combat and Prayer."

The group's regional leader is bandit chieftain Mokhtar Belmokhtar – described as part Robin Hood and part Osama bin Laden.

Belmokhtar – also known as Belaouer ("the one-eyed") – operates from a vast desert in the southeast corner of Algeria. He is involved in drug-smuggling, gun-running and highway robbery. His group seeks to install an Islamic state in Algeria.

Belmokhtar is believed to have ties with al-Qaida.

Diplomats theorized the ransom gesture was part of Gadhafi's campaign to gain "international respectability" amid talks in the United Nations Security Council over when to lift sanctions imposed on Libya after the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

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