French soldiers have killed the leader of the Al Qaeda jihadist militia in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi) in Mali. The Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdal was killed in northern Mali near the Algerian border, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Friday in the short message service Twitter.
“Several of his close colleagues” were also killed in the operation, said Parly. According to news agency AFP, the Aqmi chief, who commanded several jihadist groups in the Sahel region, was killed in Talhandak, northwest of the Malian city of Tessalit, on Thursday.
Droukdal, also occasionally written as Droukdel, was a member of Al Qaeda’s governing body, according to Parly, and commanded all branches of the network in North Africa and the Sahel. According to the minister, a leader of the jihadist group EIGS, who has sworn allegiance to the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS), was also captured.
Explosives expert and bomb maker
According to the UN, Droukdal, who was born in 1971, was an explosives expert and was responsible for the production of bombs that killed hundreds of civilians. In 2013 he was sentenced to death in Algeria for participating in an attack on a government building and the offices of the UN Refugee Committee in Algiers. 26 people were killed and 77 others injured in the attack.
According to spokesman Chris Karns, the US Army provided important information about Droukdal’s whereabouts. The high command over US military operations in Africa (Afrikom) helped with intelligence information “to identify the target,” said Karns on CNN.
Aqmi emerged from an Islamist group that was founded by Algerian Islamists in the late 1990s and was initially active as a Salafist group for preaching and fighting. In 2007 she joined the Al Qaeda network.
Attacks in the Sahel zone
From the north of Mali, Aqmi has repeatedly carried out attacks in the Sahel zone and kidnapped western foreigners. The group was responsible, among other things, for the devastating attacks on a luxury hotel and a restaurant in Burkina Faso with 30 deaths in 2016.
Mali has not come to rest for years. In 2012, several predominantly Islamist groups took control of northern Mali. The former colonial power France intervened militarily in 2013. But despite the presence of thousands of international soldiers, instability persists in the West African country.
France has deployed more than 5,000 soldiers in the Sahel region for its “Barkhane” counterterrorism mission. The German Bundeswehr is also deployed in Mali. French security circles have reported that French soldiers have killed or arrested around 500 jihadist fighters in the past few months, including several militia leaders.
An army official told AFP that Droukdal’s death was an important symbolic victory for France. Droukdal was able to fund jihadist movements in the region. His death could disrupt Al Qaeda structures in North Africa, the army official said. (apa / afp)
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