{A high-ranking member of the jihadist group al Murabitoun was killed in an overnight operation conducted by French forces in northern Mali, the army said Thursday.}
“Last night … French forces conducted an operation in the Gao region in coordination with Malian authorities,” army spokesman Gilles Jaron said.
Jaron said that Ahmed el Tilemsi, who was the head of the Mali division of the group and was wanted by the United States, had been killed in the raid.
Al Murabitoun was formed in 2013 by the merger of two Islamist militias.
The Masked Men Brigade, an al Qaeda-linked group led by Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, said in an August 2013 statement that it had merged with the Mali-based Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) to form al Murabitoun, which it said aims to target France for its military campaign in Mali.
The United States offered a $5 million reward for Belmokhtar’s capture in 2013.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Leave a Reply