Translating the name of this group as “The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa” is misleading. “Oneness” is tauhid, the Islamic concept of absolute monotheism. The Movement for Tauhid and Jihad in West Africa clearly has religious goals, but such goals are exactly what Western analysts are determined to ignore or downplay wherever and whenever possible, thereby dooming themselves to misunderstanding the motives and goals of such groups.
“Jihadist group in Mali announces death of French hostage,” by Serge Daniel, AFP, April 22:
One of Mali’s top jihadist groups said on Tuesday a French hostage it had kidnapped in November 2012 was dead.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a splinter group of Al-Qaeda’s regional branch, told AFP Gilberto Rodrigues Leal “is dead, because France is our enemy”.
Yoro Abdoul Salam, a spokesman for the group, gave no details on the date or circumstances of Rodrigues Leal’s death during a brief telephone exchange.
Pressed for evidence in the absence of any pictures or video footage of Rodrigues Leal’s body, he said that “in the name of Allah, he is dead”, before hanging up.
The announcement came two days after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he was “extremely worried” about the safety of the 62-year-old.
“We haven’t had any news for a long time. We are in contact with the family but we are extremely worried,” he said.
Rodrigues Leal was kidnapped on November 20, 2012 by armed men near the western town of Kayes as he was driving a camper van from Mauritania.
MUJAO is one of several Islamist groups that occupied the vast desert north of Mali along with Tuareg separatist rebels in 2012, in the wake of a military coup.
The Islamists later routed the Tuareg and began an advance on Bamako that led to a military intervention by former colonial power France in January 2013.
French troops pushed the Al-Qaeda-linked militants out of northern towns early last year and have kept up operations against residual groups of insurgents.
France is winding down its force from a peak of around 5,000 soldiers but is to keep 1,000 troops in Mali beyond the spring.
The UN peacekeepers took over security in July last year from a pan-African military mission which had been supporting the French troops.
The UN mission played a key security role in presidential polls last year which saw former premier Ibrahim Boubacar Keita become the country’s first democratically elected leader since the coup.
The announcement of Rodrigues Leal’s death comes against the backdrop of tension across the north, where MUJAO and other Islamist militias are regrouping, according to security sources.
Last week French forces freed five Malian aid workers taken hostage in a February kidnapping claimed by MUJAO.
The five went missing along with their four-by-four vehicle on the roads between the towns of Kidal and Gao while working in the region.
Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said last month French soldiers had killed about 40 Islamist fighters, including some senior commanders, in Mali over a number of weeks.
They included Omar Ould Hamaha, a commander of MUJAO and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb known by the nom-de-guerre “Red Beard”.
Hamaha was implicated in the April 2012 abduction of Algerian diplomats in Gao, Mali’s largest northern city, also claimed by MUJAO.
mariam rove says
In the name oneness…… are there any other names that muslim jihadists do not use to kill? M
pongidae rex says
France has more Muslims than any other country in Europe, most of them migrants and ‘refugees’ living in no-go zones for non-Muslims, and most of them on some form of public assistance. Yet France is ‘the Enemy’ to this Islamist group.
At what point do the politics of dreams and fantasy give way to waking reality in Europe? At what cost?
Angemon says
“France has more Muslims than any other country in Europe, most of them migrants and ‘refugees’ living in no-go zones for non-Muslims, and most of them on some form of public assistance. Yet France is ‘the Enemy’ to this Islamist group.”
The “islamophobic” french government prevents those poor muslims from enforcing sharia law on the land. It’s good that can pray on the streets and block traffic, it’s good that they live from jizyia (welfare) and it’s good that the kuffar don’t fight back when youths (PC MC codeword for “muslims”) burn cars and attack people on the street, but that’s not enough for them. Islam means submission and the kuffar are not submitting, therefore they’re considered the enemy.
Angemon says
Poor guy. I hope he died quickly and I hope he died clean.
No Fear says
Allahu Akbar!
nabi sange says
Yes, it is. Allahu Barbar.
john spielman says
more like Allahu BARBARIAN!
bradamante says
I’m so sorry. I know the slaughter goes on every day, but for some reason the idea that these cowards killed an unarmed 62-year-old hostage sickens me. I hope at least it was quick.
bradamante says
Sounded kind of stupid to say “for some reason.” I meant just that this one got to me more than some of the others. The depravity seems to have no bottom to it.
Twostellas says
Was he there trying to feed, clothe, desalinate water, or help them extract their oil? Or just vacationing and unaware of how serious the jihad is due to the coverup of such around the world? Maybe he lived there and was a good neighbor, he thought.
In any matter, if the “infidels” disengaged from the Muslim world, they would starve, or have no drinking water, or be the poorest of the poor unable to build or extract oil and no one would care much what happened to them, like some other poor tribal people you never hear about. I mean how would they survive? You can’t eat, drink, or wear hate.
Defcon 4 says
@Twostellas
Maybe he refused to be a filthy islamaphobe. Maybe, since most muslimes are good people, he figured he had nothing to fear. I just wish more people who subscribe to those theories were visiting muslime states.
dumbledoresarmy says
You wrote – “I mean how would they survive? You can’t eat, drink, or wear hate.”
Have you ever read Martha Gellhorn’s classic article, from 1961, entitled “The Arabs of Palestine”??
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-arabs-of-palestine/4203/
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196110/gellhorn
Toward the end, she has this absolutely *searing* passage about the character of “Arab” (that is, MUSLIM) society.
She and an earnestly philanthropic Jew, within Israel, have just visited a Palestinian Arab Muslim village.
“…When we left, the pretty, healthy children ran beside the car, shouting. I waved.
‘Nissim looked queer, something was wrong; that chronic optimist seemed sad.
“What’s the matter, Nissim?”
“Nothing. What the children say.”
“You mean just now, shouting?”
“Yes. They say: ‘Where you going, bastard? I spit on you.'”
What for, I thought, what for, and will it never stop?
“Do you hate the Arabs, Nissim?”
“No. Of course no.”
“Why not?”
“What is the good of hate?”
‘What indeed?
‘Arabs [and she might just as well have written “Muslims”, with greater accuracy, and an applicability far beyond the so-called “Arab world”, across the entirety of the lands controlled by Islam – dda] gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it.
“Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners [indeed, any *non-Muslims* – dda] are hateful enough.
“Arabs [Muslims – dda] also hate each other, separately and en masse.
“Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts.
“Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient.
“Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate.
“They teach their children hate in school [and *that* applies to Muslims of all ethnicities, living far, far outside the ‘arab’ world – dda].
“They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?…”.
Amigo de Israel says
We are a Portuguese blog that supports Israel and the Free World against Islamic terrorism. We deeply regret the death of our Portuguese fellow, Mr. Gilberto Rodrigues Leal, and thank Jihad Watch and Mr. Robert Spencer for this mention.
Lena says
Amigo de Israel – Are you telling me that you support the continuing theft of Palestine land? and that Palestinians should act meekly before such tyranny? The Palestine people hardly live in the Free world that you describe and aspire to.
defcon 5 says
Just because you filthy scuzzlums stole the land from the Jewish people doesn’t make you the owners. The Jews were in Israel long before muhammud molested his first little girl.
CornHolio says
” Palestinians should act meekly before such tyranny?”
———
So by “acting meekly”, you’re referring to blowing up schoolbuses?
Plenty of aboriginal groups in Canada and Australia and the US have claims re. stolen land, but you don’t see that sort of thing from them, do you?
Amigo de Israel says
Lena, if you are Portuguese, you should know that Israel is smaller than our province of Alentejo, in our small Portugal. Can you name me ONE muslim democratic country? If israel is so bad to «palestinians» why they still live there? I’m sure paradise islamic countries are more than glad to receive them! I suggest you stop being hypocritical, or, if you are just a brainwashed “useful idiot for Fakestine”, that you study History and international law. Israel occupies a fraction of what was HER land for millennia, non-stop, and you have the nerve to talk about “land theft”??? Israel was STOLEN when the partition plan gave her only 12% of the land and the remainder to the Arabs. You are on a site that shows what is the supremacism and Islamic terrorism and do comments like that? Israel is the native people and can’t give more land for peace! 88% of her territory and them 2/3 in change for peace is enough. More land to the terrorists is suicide. They have plenty. israel is only 1% of Midle East.
Amigo de Israel says
I’d like to see you regret the death of Mr. Leal at the hands of your terrorist pals. But no! You people, have no feelings, no national pride, no love for your people and country.
gravenimage says
What utter crap from “Lena”—the “Palestinians” seek the complete destruction of Israel.
Lena says
Graven image – regrettably you have been reading the extreme right wing press and actually believing all the distorted rhetoric they distribute in the name of “balanced” reporting. But no, like Amigo de Israel who assumes that I have no feelings of national pride and regret for the death of someone he feels deeply about. Silly really! I, like all true democrats feel badly for all “ideological” deaths, no matter on what side of the political spectrum they happen to be. They include the appalling relentless psychological attrition and physical deaths of innocent people in Palestine which includes many little children of course. Many points were raised in my comment – a major one being the Wests hypocrisy in getting its Y fronts in a right twist but significantly disproportionate over the Crimea, Ukraine and Russia dispute, while conveniently side lining the major inhumane issue that Palestine and its people has to endure. Unforgivable hypocrisy from the West yet again.
gravenimage says
Welcome, Amigo de Israel! It’s good to see that civilized Israel has *some* support in Europe.
The Portuguese and Spanish have a proud history of resisting Islamic conquest—and, along with Greece, part of the Balkans, and Israel herself, are virtually the *only* nations to take what is theirs back from the Mohammedan hordes.
gravenimage says
Mali Islamic jihad group announces death of French hostage: “In the name of Allah, he is dead”
…………………………….
This is what pious Muslims *do*—murder innocent people in the name of their savage “god” Allah.
Rodrigues Leal had been held hostage *since November 2012*—I can only imagine all the fear and suffering he must have been subjected to during this period.
God, I hate Islam.