Not just cash
I reckon the AQ-M motivation is more than money. Money from kidnaping partly finances what they do. But if you look at the targets for the kidnapping (NGO-aid intervention in the Mauri event, Canadian Diplomats bound up in the Niger peace process, westerners attending the desert concert), the message is that they go to some trouble to locate specific targets and the common element in the list of those targeted is that they were seeking to engage with or influence the Saharan region. Tourists on a desert trip have, since 2003, been the minority amongst those taken. Additionally, the net is spread very wide - Mauri-Tunisia-Niger-Mali. Seems to me they are seeking to limit western influence on the Sahara region, seeking to control the as much of the Sahara as possible and doing so in a way that also finances their mission. If their mission was just money, I can't see they'd go all the way to Tunisia and all the way to Mauri (with their HQ in N.Mali). Assuming the Mauri hit was AQ-M and that they're on the crossing to N.Mali now, then that is quite some undertaking. Its only been done twice by westerners in the last 4 decades - Chris the more recent of the two. Its would be hard to explain that bold hit purely on a cash basis.
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