Belmokhtar is said to be a man who appears to have at least nine lives as he has reportedly been killed several times in the past.
A veteran of Algeria’s internal struggle in the 1990s and Afghanistan, he built up a smuggling operation from the Saharan wastes that ignored borders and authority as it carved out a commercial empire and swore fidelity to al-Qaeda.Long thought by the French to be “uncatchable”, he masterminded the 2013 attack on the Amanas gas field in Algeria in which 40 workers died.
His men conducted lucrative kidnappings, and his forces also engaged in the conflict in Mali where he shared ideology with Boko Haram.
