PARIS — The head of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), who was wanted for
deadly attacks on US soldiers and foreign aid workers, has been killed in an
operation by French troops.
اضافة اعلان
Adnan Abu
Walid al-Sahrawi was "neutralized by French forces", President
Emmanuel Macron tweeted early Thursday.
"This
is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the
Sahel," Macron said, without giving the location or details of the
operation.
Defense
Minister Florence Parly said Sahrawi died following a strike by France's
Barkhane force, which battles jihadists in the Sahel.
"It is
a decisive blow against this terrorist group," she tweeted. "Our
fight continues."
The
jihadist leader was behind the killing of French aid workers in 2020 and was
also wanted by the United States over a deadly 2017 attack on US troops in
Niger.
Sahrawi in
2015 formed ISGS, which is blamed for most of the jihadist attacks in Mali,
Niger and Burkina Faso.
The
flashpoint "tri-border" area is frequently targeted by ISGS and the
Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM).
ISGS has
carried out deadly attacks targeting civilians and soldiers in the region.
The United
States had offered a $5 million reward for information on the whereabouts of
Sahrawi, who was wanted over an October 4, 2017 attack in Niger that killed
four US Special Forces and four Niger troops.
Aid
workers killed
On August
9, 2020, in Niger, the ISGS head personally ordered the killing of six French
aid workers and their Niger guides and drivers.
In late
2019, the group carried out a series of large-scale attacks against military
bases in Mali and Niger.
A former
member of Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement, Sahrawi
joined Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and had also co-led Mujao, a
Malian Islamist group responsible for kidnapping Spanish aid workers in Algeria
and a group of Algerian diplomats in Mali in 2012.
The French
military has killed several high-ranking members of ISGS under its strategy of
targeting jihadist leaders since the start of its military intervention in Mali
in 2013.
In June
this year, Macron announced a major scale-back in France's anti-jihadist
Barkhane force in the Sahel after more than eight years of military presence in
the vast region to refocus on counter-terrorism operations and supporting local
forces.
"The
nation is thinking this evening of all its heroes who died for France in the
Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all
its wounded," Macron added in another tweet after Sahrawi was killed.
"Their
sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we
will continue this fight."
The north
of Mali fell under jihadist control in 2012 until they were pushed out of the
cities by France's military intervention in 2013.
But Mali,
an impoverished and landlocked nation home to at least 20 ethnic groups,
continues to battle jihadist attacks and intercommunal violence, which often
spills over to neighboring countries.
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