French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Wednesday that French military forces had killed the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
“It’s another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel,” Macron said in a tweet.
The militant leader, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, oversaw a group that claimed responsibility for an attack in 2017 that killed four U.S. soldiers patrolling with Nigerian forces.
And in August 2020, Mr Al-Sahraoui personally ordered the killing of six French charity workers and their Nigerian driver, according to a statement from Macron’s office, according to Reuters.
The 2017 assault was one of the deadliest attacks in recent years against American soldiers in Africa. In addition to the four Americans, including two members of the green berets, five Nigerian soldiers who were with them on a joint mission were killed.
Al-Sahrawi was a member of the regional branch of al-Qaeda before pledging allegiance to the Islamic State about five years ago.
Macron’s tweet did not say in which country he was killed.
In January, a hundred civilians were killed in attacks by suspected militants in the Tillabéri region of Niger, where the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara was known to function.
Since rebels and armed Islamists took control of neighboring Mali’s cities in 2012, the terrorist threat has spread across the Sahel, a strip of land south of the Sahara where French forces have had a significant presence. for a long time.