French forces killed the head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. (Representative)
Paris, France:
French forces have killed Al Qaeda leader in the Islamic Maghreb, Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdel in northern Mali, French officials said on Friday.
Droukdel was killed Thursday near the Algerian border, where the group has bases to carry out attacks and kidnappings of Westerners in the sub-Saharan zone of the Sahel, declared the French Minister for Defense, Florence Parly.
“Many close associates” of Droukdel – who also held authority over several affiliated jihadist groups in the region – have also been “neutralized,” she added.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) comes from a group created in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists.
– ISIS official captured –
France also said on Friday that it had captured a leader of the Islamic State in the Grand Sahara (EIGS) group, which is carrying out frequent attacks over the western borders of Niger.
“On May 19, French forces captured Mohamed el Mrabat, a former jihadist from the Sahel region and an important member of EIGS,” Parly said on Twitter.
Operations against EIGS “the other great terrorist threat in the region” are continuing, said Parly.
France has more than 5,000 soldiers deployed in its anti-jihadist Barkhane force in the Sahel region.
Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in 2012 and has claimed the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians since.
Despite the presence of thousands of French and UN soldiers, the conflict engulfed the center of the country and spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
A source told AFP that some 500 jihadist fighters had been killed or captured by French troops in the region in recent months, including several important figures including commanders and recruiters.
Droukdel’s death is a symbolic coup for the French, said a military source.
He had remained a threat in the region, capable of funding jihadist movements, even if his leadership had been contested, added the source.
His death and that of other Al Qaeda figures could leave the group disorganized in the Sahel.
Born in 1971 in a poor district of Algiers, Droukdel participated in the founding in Algeria of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, elected Algerian president in 1999, managed to convince most of the country’s armed groups to lay down their arms.
The GSPC, however, refused to do so and Droukdel decided to approach Al-Qaeda.
His affiliation with the founder of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, was confirmed in 2006.
The following year, GSPC was renamed AQMI, fully attributing to the ideology of Al Qaeda.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
