El Para following the trail of the Bin Laden of the desert | France 2 | Envoyé Spécial

They call him the Bin Laden of the desert: El Para, the leader of the Salafiste Group for Predication and Combat, an Algerian terrorist organization which is high up on the black list of the American state department. After his murderous attacks in Algeria, El Para took thirty European tourists hostage a year ago, most of them German and Austrians. One of the hostages died of sun stroke, the others were freed August 18, 2003 after Gerard Schroder’s government paid a ransom to the kidnappers. El Para and his men then vanished into dunes of the desert. In fact, he was captured by Toubous rebels from Chad who are fighting the N’Jamena government and who are holding him and his men prisoners somewhere in the Tibesti desert.