France news reported on Friday that its military group has killed al-Qaeda’s North Africa chief Abdelmalek Droukdel, a wanted terrorist who its forces had been hunting for more than seven years, during an operation in Mali.
It was earlier reported “On June 3, that the French army forces, with the support of their local partners, killed the emir of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, and several of his closest collaborators, during an operation in northern Mali,” French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly confirmed via Twitter although there has not been confirmation of his death from al-Qaeda.
Droukdel’s reported death comes almost six months after French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of the G5 Sahel group – Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad – launched a new plan combining their military forces under one command structure to fight armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) group.
Droukdel who was believed to be hiding in the mountains of northern Algeria. AQIM was the dominant force in the region, staging several high-profile deadly attacks until 2013, when it fractured as many fighters flocked to ISIL as it seized territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
It remained active in North Africa’s largely desert and often scarcely governed Sahel region. In Mali, it focused its activities to the north in Libya and Tunisia. As ISIL waned, the group has sought to lure new talent from among ISIL veterans.
Parly who identified Droukdel as a member of al-Qaeda’s “management committee”. Related operations in the region also led to the arrest May 19 of a major figure in ISIL (ISIS) in the Greater Sahara, Africa-News reports.