[AlAhram] Mali's army said on Saturday it had confirmed the death of Amadou Koufa, one of the most prominent jihadist leaders in the country, in a raid by French forces on Thursday night."I confirm that Amadou Koufa was killed during the operation," Malian army front man Colonel Diarran Kone told Rooters. He declined to elaborate.
La Belle France's army had said on Friday that Koufa may have been killed in the operation in the central Mopti region that "put out of action" about 30 Islamist holy warriors.
Koufa, a radical preacher, was one of the top deputies to Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of Mali's most prominent jihadi group, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM),
| ...umbrella organization of regional terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) Sahara Emirate, al-Mourabitoun, and local groups Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and Ansar al-Din (AAD)... |
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
Those attacks have shifted Mali's six-year-old Islamist insurgency from the remote desert north closer to its populous south and prompted La Belle France and the United States to deploy thousands of troops across West Africa's semi-arid region.