ICC Note: The mastermind of the deadly November 2015 terror attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako Mali remains in police custody after Malian authorities arrested him Thursday possessing a stockpile of weapons and explosives. The Mauritanian citizen Fawaz Ould Ahmeida stands accused of planning the assault where al-Qaeda terror affiliates murdered 21 people on November 20. Reports suggest Ahmeida also plotted other hotel and bar attacks, including at least two others in 2015 in Mali in which 13 other people died. While these attacks fail to meet the definition of persecution, al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its affiliates represent Mali’s most deadly persecutor. In the process of their insurgency overrunning northern Mali, AQIM has targeted Christians for murder, has destroyed churches as well as mosques, and has placed bounties on pastors’ heads, causing massive displacement of Christians from the north where they now impose sharia law.

4/22/16 Bamako, Mali (BBC) – Authorities in Mali say they have arrested a Mauritanian man suspected of masterminding deadly attacks on hotels in the country last year.

Fawaz Ould Ahmeida is accused of planning, among others, the November attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in the capital Bamako that left 20 dead.

Security services said he had been plotting to carry out attacks on Western targets in Bamako this weekend.

They said he was a member of the al-Murabitoun jihadist group.

Al-Murabitoun, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), has said it carried out the Radisson Blu attack.

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