| What, another one? Photos or ears are the usual proofs, I believe. |
[NEWS.YAHOO] French forces have killed the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Algerian Abdelmalik Droukdel... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the
Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb....
, in Mali, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said on Friday.
Droukdel was killed on Thursday in the northwest Mali town of Tessalit. "Many of his close associates" were also "neutralised", said Parly.
"Abdelmalik Droukdel, member of al-Qaeda's ruling committee, commanded the whole of the jihadist groups in North Africa and the Sahara" including Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM) -- an umbrella group of al-Qaeda affiliates, Parly said.AQIM stems from a group started in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists, who in 2007 formally subscribed to al-Qaeda's ideology.
The group, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
... now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb...
, has bases in northern Mali from where it regularly carries out attacks and abductions of westerners in the sub-Saharan Sahel zone.
La Belle France also claimed on Friday to have captured a leader of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) group, which carries out frequent attacks over Niger's western borders.
Operations against EIGS "the other great terrorist threat in the region" are continuing, said Parly.
La Belle France has over 5,000 troops deployed in its anti-jihadist Barkhane force in the Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in 2012 and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives since.
Despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops, the conflict has engulfed the centre of the country and spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso
...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...
and Niger.