PARIS – France killed Islamic State group leader in Greater Sahara, French officials said Thursday, calling him a “number 1 enemy” in protracted counterterrorism efforts in the region.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi overnight.
According to Macron’s office, al-Sahrawi personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Nigerian colleagues last year, and his group was behind a 2017 attack that killed military personnel of the United States and Niger.
He was killed in a strike by French military operation Barkhane “a few weeks ago”, but authorities waited to be sure of his identity before making the announcement, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Thursday. on RFI radio.
He did not reveal details of the operation or the place where the al-Sahrawi man was killed, although ISIS is active on the Mali-Niger border.
“It was at the root of the massacres and terror,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France-Info radio on Thursday. He urged African governments to fill the gap and seize land taken by extremists.
Rumors of the militant leader’s death had been circulating in Mali for weeks, although authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not possible to immediately independently verify the claim or know how the remains had been identified.
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Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with the Nigerian army. His group has also kidnapped foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.
The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he headed to northern Mali, where he became a major figure in the group known as MUJAO that controlled the main city north of Gao in 2012.
A French-led military operation the following year expelled Islamic extremists from power in Gao and other northern cities, although these elements later regrouped and retaliated.
The Malian group MUJAO was loyal to the regional branch of Al Qaeda. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi posted an audio message promising allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
France, a former colonial power in the region, recently announced it would reduce its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops early next year.