Who was Adnan Abu Walid al Sahraoui, the terror of the Sahara for which they offered 5 million dollars and was killed by France

Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, founder and leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara killed this Thursday by France, was one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. The United States had set the price $ 5 million at its head.

“He was at the origin of the massacres and the terror”, declared the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, after the announcement of his death.

Al Sahrawi —Alias ​​de Lehbib Ould Ali Ould Said Ould Yumani— was born in 1973 in the city of Laâyoune, in the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony which is now a disputed territory controlled by Morocco. Initially, he was active in the Polisario Front, a guerrilla group supported by Algeria that he was seeking independence for Western Sahara. According to local sources, at that time Al Sahraoui began to criticize the social policy of the Polisario, speaking out against mixed schools and women playing an active role in social life.

He then joined the Saudi center for Ibn Abbas, in Mauritania, considered a center for recruiting terrorists in the region, before joining Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and go to Sahel, where he fought alongside the jihadists who seized Timbuktu. He then joined the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, a Malian group affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Then in 2015, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, become the leader of a new extremist group franchise in the region, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS).

During his six years at the helm of EIGS, the group has become a rival to groups affiliated with al-Qaeda most rooted in the region. As Western coalition forces and their local allies dismantled the terrorist group in its strongholds in Syria e Iraq, Al Sahraoui built the political and financial power of the group in Africa, using funds raised through illegal activities – such as smuggling, the sale of stolen cattle and the smuggling of migrants – to buy weapons, retain members local tribes and pay the salaries of combatants and administrators in areas under their control.

He also imposed Islamic law in the region: he made the veil compulsory for women, imposed the cutting of hands on thieves, and banned music, sports, alcohol and tobacco.

His most shocking crimes

In 2017, Al Sahraoui claimed responsibility for a ambushed in October 2017 in the Nigerian village of Tongo tongo, in which four US special forces soldiers and four Nigerians have died. The attack caused the greatest loss of American combat lives in Africa since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.

After this operation, Al Sahraoui crossed the Sahel on a Honda motorcycle carrying a short-barreled machine gun seized from one of the fallen US soldiers. A gesture carrying a symbolism that the jihadist leader knew.

“It was a trophy”said Husseini Jibril, a former ISIS operative who met al-Sahrawi before surrendering to the Nigerien government in 2020.

In response, The United States put a $ 5 million bounty on his head, making him one of Africa’s most wanted men.

The Al Sahrawi group he also kidnapped foreigners in the Sahel and still detains the American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.

In August 2020, personally ordered the murder of six French charity workers and their Nigerian driver.

But jihadist violence first affected the local population.

Under the leadership of Al Sahraoui, the fighters of the EIGS launched a series of massacres against local populations in the so-called tri-state border region that unites Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. In June, jihadists, many of them child soldiers, killed 130 Burkinabe civilians. It is the worst terrorist atrocity in the country’s history, prompting calls to step up international efforts to fight terrorism in West Africa.

It is estimated that in total, 2,400 civilians were killed in separate attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso last year, based on data from the Armed Conflict Events and Location Data project. The Al Sahrawi group was the deadliest, causing the 79% of deaths due to violence against civilians in Niger until June 2021says ACLED. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that the conflict has displaced some 684,000 people in the region.

Al Sahraoui has also focused his firepower on his former al Qaeda comrades., sending troops, car bombs and suicide bombers to their bases as the two groups fought for supremacy across the Sahel.

Last year, US-backed French operation killed al-Qaeda regional leader Abdelmalek DroukdelBut US, French and regional officials have been forced to reverse unconfirmed claims of the killings of other leading terrorists, including Al Sahrawi MP Abdelhakim al-Sahrawi.

This Thursday, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced the death of Al Sahraoui as “a great success” for the French army after more than eight years of fighting extremists in the Sahel. Macron tweeted that Al Sahraoui “has been neutralized by French forces”, but did not develop.

It was not announced where Al Sahraoui was killed, although the Islamic State group is still active along the border between Mali and Niger.

The death of Al-Sahraoui would leave another Islamist militant, Iyad Ag Ghaly, in the sights of France. the organization of Ghaly, the Support group for Islam and Muslims, was behind an attack in 2018 against the French embassy in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

“It is clear that today, it is Iyad Ag Ghaly who is the number one priority”, declared in June Eric Vidaud, the highest commander of the French special forces. “This is the person we absolutely must capture, or neutralize if that is not possible, in the coming months.”

France, the region’s former colonial power, recently announced that it would reduce its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops early next year.

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