Al-Qaeda Organization in The Islamic Maghreb - Edwin Dyer

Edwin Dyer

In 2003, 32 Europeans were taken hostage in the Sahara in a series of abductions run by El Para, an agent of GSPC. In February 2008 two Austrians were captured in Tunisia and taken via Algeria to Mali and freed later that year. Two Canadian diplomats were taken hostage in south-western Niger in December 2008 while on official UN mission to resolve crisis in northern Niger. They were freed in Mali in April 2009. Diplomat Robert Fowler later stated that the government of Niger could be behind the kidnapping. These all kidnappings were attributed to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Edwin Dyer was one of four Westerners who were kidnapped when their convoy was ambushed near the border between Niger and Mali in January 2009 by an African terrorist group calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, militia which aims to overthrow the Algerian government. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb made demands that the British government must release Abu Qatada, the Jordanian known as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, or Dyer would face execution.

On 31 May 2009 the terrorist group released a statement on a known terrorist website claiming to have executed Dyer. Edwin Dyer's murder was confirmed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown on 3 June 2009 after reports on an Islamist website that he had been killed. Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned what he called an "appalling and barbaric act of terrorism" in Prime Ministers Questions on 6 March 2009.

Mr. Dyer spoke fluent German and had been working in Austria. He was kidnapped in Niger on 22 January, close to the border with Mali.

He was captured along with a number of other European tourists, including two Swiss and one German. The group had been visiting the Anderamboukane festival on nomad culture. All of the other tourists were eventually released. Werner Greiner, a fellow victim of the kidnap revealed to The Daily Telegraph on 19 September 2009 that Edwyn Dyer 'saved his life' forcing him to eat and drink when he was at his weakest, arguing with his kidnappers to bring him medicine, and persuading him that no matter how hard things were, hope should never be abandoned.