Amari Saifi

Who is Amari Saifi?

Amari Saifi, also known under his aliases Abou Haidara or Abderrazak le Para, is one of the leaders of the Islamist militia Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

According to Paris Match, Saifi claims to have been the head of the bodyguard of the Algerian defense minister Khaled Nezzar from 1990 to 1993. It is believed that he joined the armed Islamist movement in 1992 and later advanced to become the second-in-command of the GSPC, but his name did not appear on the GSPC website until 2004. His nickname "El Para" is derived from "paratrooper", as he is believed to have been a trained parachutist in the Algerian armed forces before integrating in the Islamist network.

Saifi became widely known when he was identified as one of the kidnappers who abducted in 2003 a group of 32 tourists, most of them German, in Algeria. It was then that the Algerian government claimed that the former military agent had switched sides.

After the hostages were released in two groups - one liberated by the Algerian army, the other against ransom - Saifi and 50 of his men allegedly left northern Mali and were pursued through Niger by combined Algerian and Malian forces into northern Chad.