French Defense Minister Florence Barley said on Friday that her country's forces killed on Thursday the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, in an operation north of Mali.
"On June 3, French military forces, with the support of local partners, killed the prince of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, and several of his closest aides," Barley said on Twitter.
The French minister indicated that Droukdel was killed in the town of Tasalit, near the border with Algeria, from which the organization took a base to launch attacks and kidnapping of Western citizens in the Sahel region.
Barley described the elimination of the leader of the organization in the Maghreb as a "brilliant and necessary success for security and stability in the region."
Stations on the march of the man
and Droukdel - who is Algerian and an expert in explosives - participated in his group's takeover of northern Mali, before being repelled by a French military intervention in 2013 and dispersing its militants in the Sahel.
It is believed that the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was hiding in the mountains in the north of Algeria, and the organization is active in northern Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Algeria, and was called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, before he announced his joining of al-Qaeda in 2007.
In 2013, the Algerian judiciary issued a death sentence in absentia on Droukdel, on suspicion of involvement in bombings of government installations and offices of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Algerian capital, killing and wounding dozens.
A leading organization of the state
and said the French defense minister said her country 's troops also arrested in May / May last 19 Mohammed cleats, a fighter and described as a veteran in the region, and a leading role in the organization of Islamic State in the Sahara , which has waged attacks the western border area of Niger.
France has deployed more than 5,200 of its soldiers in the Sahel region, which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, in order to fight armed groups, most notably al Qaeda and the state.