Well-informed security sources about counterterrorism issues unveiled that US security forces in northern Mali tried to eliminate Mokhtar Belmokhtar alias Khaled Abu Al Abbas, who has escaped many murder attempts the most recent one in September 2006 in an ambush set by Malian agents in Kidal. The same sources added that Belmokhtar has escaped the operation while he lost four men. The US forces track of the GSPC Northern Mali and in the Sahel countries in tight collaboration with local populations and arms smugglers. Algerian repentant terrorists have provided the US intelligence with accurate information on the GSPC structure and projects in the African Sahel. This information collected from US agents in arms trafficking networks allowed the Americans wiretap Thuraya cell phones and finally arrest the GSPC second man-in-command Abderrezak Al Para in 2004.
The US benefit from the GSPC need for arms to seek more information allowing getting rid of the terrorist groups in Africa. The African Sahel has become an opened area for many countries intelligence services who invest in the chaotic situation and the porous borders in the desert. It is also known that arms trafficking networks in Africa trade with Israelis, and most of the GSPC arms infiltrated the southern borders from Israel via Darfur in Sudan and Jordan.