Mastermind of Algerian hostage drama reported killed Killed by soldiers in Mali: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, still image taken from a video released by Sahara Media, is reportedly the al Qaeda mastermind of a hostage-taking at an Algerian gas plant in January. Chad's military says its soldiers in Mali have killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of the seizure in January of an Algerian gas plant that left at least 37 foreign hostages dead. Belmokhtar's death was announced on state television in Chad on Saturday, but has not been confirmed by others. "Today, Saturday, at noon, Chadian armed forces on mission in Mali totally destroyed the principal base of the terrorists and narcotraffickers in the Ifoghas mountain range," Chad's armed forces spokesman, General Zakaria Ngobongue, said. Several terrorists, "including the chief, Mokhtar Belmokhtar," were killed in the operation, he said. French Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said the ministry could not confirm the claim. US military and counterterrorism officials said they were aware of the reports and were seeking confirmation. Chadian soldiers are fighting Islamist militants in Mali as part of an international force led by France. Other claims of the battlefield deaths of famous militants have proved false and positive identification in some cases can take days or weeks. Chad also claimed on Friday that its forces had killed Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, the most important commander in al-Qaeda's regional franchise, in Mali. The Algerian newspaper El Khabar reported that DNA samples from a body presumed to be that of Abu Zeid had been sent to Algeria, where he was born and where some of his relatives live, but neither French nor Algerian officials have confirmed his death. At the time of the raid in Algeria, which Belmokhtar said he had organised, Belmokhtar's spokesmen said it was carried out in reprisal for the French intervention in Mali and for Algeria's support for the French war against Islamist militants in the region, Belmokhtar, 40, was one of four leaders of al-Qaeda's North Africa branch during the 2000s. He fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and was known as "the One-Eyed" after he lost his left eye in the '90s, and "Mr Marlboro" because of his extensive trafficking in contraband cigarettes.