Sahel: what do we know about the death of al-Saharoui, head of the Islamic State in the Great Sahara?
Helicopters of the French Barkhane force deployed in the Sahel.
(Illustrative image) MICHELE CATTANI AFP / File
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui was killed by a strike from Barkhane a few weeks ago, according to the French president.
The announcement was published soberly on the French president's twitter account a little before 1 a.m. on Thursday, November 16, 2021. Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahara and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) group had been designated as enemies number one at the G5 Sahel summit in Pau in January 2019.
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With our correspondent in Bamako
,
Serge Daniel
Since last July, the noose has tightened around
the head of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) group
, Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui, confides a French security source. By this time, two other cadres of the movement had already been killed and documents seized. It is almost in the same area that Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui was shot dead at the end of August. He had apparently just left the surroundings of the Malian town of Ménaka for the Niger border.
The operation carried out by French soldiers, according to our information, also made it possible to neutralize several other fighters of the Islamic State organization.
And if the French army waited several weeks before making the information public, it is because it was necessary to verify that the leader of the killed group was Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui.
What impact for EIGS?
His death is a blow to his troops who operate in the area known as the three borders - Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger.
A hard blow which nevertheless does not mean the end of jihadist operations.
ISIS fighters are increasingly trained to operate in small, self-contained groups.
And unlike the second jihadist group led by Iyad Ag Ghali, Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM), which makes Mali its base, the Islamic State is extending its tentacles to Niger and neighboring Burkina Faso in order to no longer depend too much on Mali, where many foreign forces are concentrated.
Who was Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui?
Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui was born in the 1970s. We find him in the 1990s in Algeria as a student and activist of the independence movement the Polisario.
RFI had met him in 2012 near Gao during the occupation of northern Mali by the jihadists.
Childish gaze, walkie-talkie in hand, he did not hide that unlike other jihadist groups in the North, his ambition was to expand his movement throughout West Africa.
He then quickly established himself as the head of the organization of the Islamic State in the Great Sahara in the area of the three borders (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger).
Its strategy, violence, atrocities and the establishment of jihadist cells especially in Niger and Burkina Faso so as not to depend only on its Malian bases.
The bête noire of Westerners
The man of average height, with a rather thin voice, is known to lead his troops on his own during attacks.
This is what he did for example in 2017, two years after creating the Islamic State by leading
the deadly ambush of Tongo Tongo in Niger
against American and Nigerien troops.
In
Abu Walid's
curriculum
, he should also note the kidnapping of several hostages including Westerners.
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