Same guy, Iyad Ag Ghali and not from Niger, sorry, but I heard he is there now?
Iyad ag Ghali - Wikipédia

Rumour is spreading
greenpeace magazin: Deutscher in Mali von Entführern getötet - neue Terrorgruppe

"A new Islamist terror group is possibly behind the recent kidnapping of Western foreigners in Mali, where a German was apparently killed. The terrorist group being led by former Malian diplomat and President negotiator Iyad Ag Ghali, reported the French Sunday newspaper "Le Journal du Dimanche", citing an unnamed security experts from Niamey"

Could very well be desinformation meant to discredit him!!
I saw it first on kidal.info

Mali : des otages et des barbouzes - leJDD.fr

"Northern Mali is again in the news by two almost simultaneous terrorist acts: the kidnapping of two former French mercenaries in a small hotel Hombori between Gao and Timbuktu, on the night of Wednesday, and that of three other Westerners , Timbuktu, Friday, where a fourth tourist was killed.

According to one of the best specialists in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity in Niamey, these events are linked to the creation of a new terrorist movement led by a master negotiator of Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure, Iyad Ag Ghali. This former Tuareg rebel leader became an ardent Jihadist after a parenthesis [spell] as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia. Iyad Ag Ghali, described as being ideologically close of AQIM (Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb), has benefited from the return of Libyan Tuareg fighters to form his own armed group. Designated by the Malian authorities to negotiate with AQIM hostages in several cases, he has played such a role in the recent release of three hostages Arlit in northern Niger.

A French, ex-Colonel Jean-Marc Gadoullet, 49 [aka 'the engineer; in Paris Match article], shot and wounded Wednesday in the same check-point of the army in northern Mali, would, according to this specialist, supervised the payment of a ransom for release of three hostages: the French Françoise Larribe, married to a part of Areva and two Togolese officials and Malagasy Satom Niger. The new warlord and Gadoullet, ex-action drive the service of the DGSE, became responsible for the safety of Satom Mali, have been "involved" in negotiations with Franco-Malian AQIM. These have resulted, of course, by the release of the hostages, but also by the payment of a ransom that connoisseurs say the case [raised the price] considerably.
...
While four French hostages Arlit are still held by the emir of AQIM Abu Zeid, the excolonel Gadoullet was increasingly criticized for his ambiguous role. The former soldier, who served on several continents in covert operations, had indeed developed a private security activity extremely ambitious in the Sahel since the end of 2010. Last April, he defended particularly in Niamey, the colors of Areva, a modest regional outreach project called Phoenix [or: 'proposed to the Nigerian authorities to create a militarized security company that would sell its services throughout the region, called Phoenix.']. The Nigerian authorities have foiled [declined the offer], but Gadoullet has not given up either [the idea]. In Bamako, he resumed his cap VRP private security, very active with groups of AQIM.

According to several sources French and Nigerien Gadoullet was then commissioned by France to be the interlocutor of Abu Zeid, and introduced to the Emir by Iyad Ag Ghali at the request of the President of Mali. It is established that at the end of 2010, Abu Zeid was ready to release for free the three hostages, of little value for him, two Africans and a woman. But the negotiations failed when he was about to arrive, sabotaged by the network of contacts Gadoullet. Finally, the release of three hostages in February following cost over 10 million euros, corroborating sources, Areva and Satom. The four remaining hostages are also "put a price on" the sum unheard of of 90 million euros.
...
Wednesday at a checkpoint of the Malian army, Gadoullet refused to stop. He was shot and brought back to France. The two mercenaries ['geologists'], who were employed in the 1990 and 2000 in countries where the colonel himself worked, they knew? And have they been removed [kidnapped from Hombori the day after] for this? These events are, in any case, the signal of a growing confusion in the region and a very bad move for Malian and French authorities."

(Google translate - a little messy, hope you could make some sense out of it.)
So - Gadoullet had €90M in his Landcruiser and was robbed???
And Ag Ghali is the new OBM/Qhadafi??

[clarifications in [xxx] added to original text. Ch]