The Al Mulathamun Battalion (AMB), also known as the Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade, was a Salafi-jihadist organization founded by jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar. [4] The group has its origins in Belmokhtar’s brigade in Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). When Belmokhtar split from AQIM in December 2012, he took his followers, primarily Algerian and Mauritanian militants, with him to form an independent group.[5] For months prior to the split, Belmokhtar operated the group of militants that later became the AMB as a semi-autonomous battalion within AQIM. He announced the group’s formal split from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in an online video, claiming that the Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade was composed of the best fighters from his AQIM cell and would pursue the fight against Western interests, spread jihad, and establish Shariah law in North Africa.[6]
While a member of AQIM, Belmokhtar expanded operations from Algeria into northern Mali. After the Malian military, led by the Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), overthrew the government in March 2012, AQIM, the Mouvement pour l’Unification et le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest (MUJAO), and Ansar Dine took advantage of the security vacuum to invade and occupy northern Mali. Based on instructions from Saharan AQIM commanders and the head of Ansar Dine, Belmokhtar created an alliance with MUJAO, leading to a tripartite alliance between the groups.[7] By July 2012, the three organizations had displaced MNLA as guarantors of the region’s independence. This was because the MNLA’s objective, to establish a secular and independent state in northern Mali, strongly contradicted the tripartite alliance’s aims to create a united Malian state governed by Shariah law.[8] Belmokhtar and his semi-autonomous brigade, still technically a part of AQIM, purportedly provided crucial military assistance to MUJAO against the MNLA in the Battles of Gao and Timbuktu in June 2012.[9] Though Belmokhtar used his forces to help MUJAO fight the MNLA, he posted to jihadist websites on July 1, 2012 that he remained open to accommodating the MNLA.[10]
As he operated his battalion with more and more autonomy, Belmokhtar’s relationship with AQIM leadership became increasingly contentious reportedly due to disagreements over power allocation among leaders, execution of Belmokhtar’s kidnapping operations, financial gain strategies and the lack of non-Algerian leadership in AQIM.[11] In October 2012, AQIM leadership wrote Belmokhtar a letter accusing him of not answering his phone, missing important meetings and failing to carry out “spectacular” attacks on “crusader alliances,” despite his plentiful resources.[12] Although Belmokhtar organized attacks during his time in AQIM, he focused most of his efforts on his criminal enterprise: abduction of Westerners, trafficking of drugs, cigarettes, weapons, and humans across the Sahara Desert and money theft.[13]
In December 2012, Belmokhtar officially left AQIM, taking his followers, primarily Algerian and Mauritanian militants, with him to form a fully independent group known as the Al Mulathamun Battalion (AMB), or the Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade.[14] Belmokhtar announced the group’s formal split from AQIM in an online video, claiming that the AMB was composed of the best fighters from his AQIM cell and would pursue the fight against Western interests, spread jihad and establish Shariah law in North Africa.[15] Despite the split from AQIM, Belmokhtar maintained ties to Al Qaeda (AQ).[16] Whether Belmokhtar chose to leave or was expelled from AQIM remains unclear.
Following the French invasion of northern Mali in January 2013, which forced the tripartite militant alliance to flee to the northern mountains, the AMB continued to fight. The group did not gain notoriety, however, until it attacked Algeria and Niger in retaliation for the French intervention. In its most well-known attack, on January 16, 2013, the AMB took control of a British Petroleum gas complex near In Amenas, in southeastern Algeria, with reported logistical assistance from the Sons of the Islamic Sahara Movement for Justice.[17] The militants held Algerian and foreign workers hostage and demanded the release of 100 Islamists captured in Mali and an end to French airstrikes in northern Mali. The AMB claimed responsibility for the attack and announced that the assault was in response to Algeria’s permitting France to use its airspace when launching attacks against the rebel forces in northern Mali, although later accounts indicated that planning for the raid had begun before French intervention.[18] Thirty-nine hostages were killed, most caught in cross fire, and 29 militants died in the raids.
The AMB continued to coordinate with MUJAO; in May 2013, the groups carried out simultaneous, coordinated suicide bombing attacks against a military camp in Agadez, Niger, and a French-run uranium mine in Arlit, Niger.[19] After multiple coordinated attacks, on August 2013, Belmokhtar and the leaders of MUJAO announced that their two organizations would merge into a single group, Al Mourabitoun.[20] Following the merger, the media continued to attribute attacks in North Africa to the AMB; however, it is unclear if these attacks were actually carried out by Al Mourabitoun, or by militants formerly associated with the AMB.[21]
