NEW YORK (RTRS): Al-Qaeda’s growing north Africa network plans to attack US interests seeking control of the region’s energy riches, its Algerian-based leader said in remarks published on Tuesday. The network of militants from Mauritania to Libya sees US interests as legitimate targets because Washington backed the region’s “criminal” governments and stole Algerian oil, the New York Times quoted Abdelmalek Droukdel as saying. “We found America building military bases in the south of our country and conducting military exercises, and plundering our oil and planning to get our gas,” Droukdel, also known as Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud, was quoted as saying.

“Therefore, it became our right and our duty to ... declare clearly the American interests are legitimate targets.”  Opec member Algeria, Africa’s second largest country, denies it has foreign military bases on its soil. Asked whether his group planned attacks on US soil, Droukdel replied, referring to the US administration: “Everyone must know that we will not hesitate in targeting it whenever we can and wherever it is on this planet.” He said Algeria’s banking of its energy export receipts in US and European financial institutions showed that the Algiers government served western interests. He added that French, Spanish and “Jewish” interests were also targets.

The newspaper said Droukdel, believed to based in mountains east of Algiers, had given recorded audio replies to a list of questions submitted by the Times.
His voice had been verified as genuine by a private voice expert who works for federal agencies, the newspaper said.
Droukdel’s group has links with like-minded militants in the region and is the most effective armed rebel organisation in the Opec member country of 33 million, which has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since 1992.
He said his group had witnessed an awakening of jihad around the Maghreb, adding without elaborating that this included militants in sub-Saharan oil power Nigeria.
Attacks on US interests have been rare in Algeria.
An explosives expert, Droukdel was appointed leader of an Islamist rebel group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in 20094, six years after it was founded with the aim of toppling the government and establishing purist Islamic state.

In October 2003, the group offered its support to the al-Qaeda network and in January 2007 the group changed its name to al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.
Since then it has set off a string of deadly car bombings in and around Algiers, including bombings of United Nations and government buildings in Algiers that killed at least 41 people.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on Monday revised its rules on sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taleban to ensure more information was made public on why individuals and companies were being targeted.
The move, in a resolution passed by the 15-nation council, responds to criticism from some European and other countries that those hit by the sanctions are prevented from defending themselves. Legal challenges are pending in several countries.
UN sanctions against suspected backers of al-Qaeda, its leader, Osama bin Laden, and the Afghan Taleban movement stem from six anti-terrorism resolutions since 1999 and include an asset freeze, arms embargo and travel ban.
The current list has 493 entries, of which 113 are groups, charities or businesses and the rest individuals.

Critics have long challenged the fairness of the system, saying it subjects people to harsh penalties without giving them a court hearing or disclosing the evidence against them. At least 16 people on the list are believed to be dead.
Monday’s resolution asks states to identify information on each entry that can be disclosed publicly, and directs a committee that manages the sanctions to publish on its Web site a “narrative summary” of reasons for listing new names.
For names already on the list, the committee is asked to work with states to add information.
Cases involving names on the list are pending in several countries, including two before the European Court of Justice, one involving a Saudi Arabian businessman, Yassin Kadi, and the other the Swedish-based Barakaat money transfer business.
Both want the court to cancel financial sanctions against them. If it did so, the collision between its authority and that of the Security Council, whose resolutions have legal force, could jeopardize the implementation of the UN sanctions by European Union countries, experts say.