Almost a month after France went to war against AQIM in northern Mali, Vicki Huddleston, who served as US ambassador to the country from 2002-05, accused Paris of building up the very threat its soldiers are now fighting against, reports The Telegraph.
That campaign began to resemble a guerrilla war when the first suicide bombing took place on Friday. An attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint manned by Malian soldiers outside the northern city of Gao, which French forces recaptured from AQIM and its allies last month. There were no other casualties.
However, landmines and improvised explosive devices have been laid along the main road to Gao during the last week. An explosion killed four Malian civilians as they were driving to a local market on Wednesday.
Ms Huddleston said Friday that France under the previous presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy had followed a counter-productive policy of paying ransoms.
In 2010, AQIM kidnapped four French citizens from a uranium mine in neighbouring Niger. "In order to free those people, France had to pay ransoms of $17 million [£10.75 million]," said Ms Huddleston in a television interview.
"Like all ransoms, it was paid indirectly, through the Malian government, which forwarded at least some of the funds to the Salafists."
AQIM took the money - but kept the captives. It proceeded to abduct two more French citizens in northern Mali in 2011 and another last year.
All seven French hostages are still being held, probably in the central Sahara near Mali's northern frontier with Algeria. Five other Europeans, including Italians, are also in AQIM's hands, giving them about a dozen captives in all.
The previous French government denied paying ransoms to AQIM. There has been no official reaction from Paris to Ms Huddleston's allegation.
"Everyone is pretty much aware that money has passed hands indirectly through different accounts and it ends in the treasury, let us say, of the AQIM," added the former ambassador.
"Various European governments paid ransoms through the Malian government to obtain the release of their citizens and that allowed AQIM to grow strong, buy weapons and recruit."
Germany had also paid ransoms, said Ms Huddleston. In total, it was "probably correct" to say that about $89 million (£55 million) had been transferred between 2004 and 2011.
Britain, like America, does not pay ransoms or negotiate with kidnappers. The only Briton to fall into AQIM's hands, Edwin Dyer, was murdered in 2009. His captors had demanded the release of Abu Qatada, the radical cleric who is fighting extradition from Britain to Jordan.
Read more of this report from The Telegraph.