The Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) announced of choosing another leader to replace Abdelmalek Droukdel, who was killed in June by French forces.
AQIM chose Algerian-born Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi, as the successor of Droukdel.
Al-Annabi who has been on the US’s “international terrorist” blacklist since September 2015 has been the head of AQIM’s “Council of Dignitaries.
He has severally been featured on AQIM’s propaganda videos where he has maintained his radical stance, demanded that Muslims must retaliate against France’s intervention in Mali.
Abu Ubaidah Yusuf al-Anabi was an Algerian Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader. On 9 September 2015, he was designated a terrorist by the US State Department after appearing in a 25 April 2013 video calling for attacks against France’s interest across the world in response to their intervention in the Malian Civil War.
On 27 June 2016, he appeared in a propaganda video “Lift the Siege of Benghazi” in which he praised the al-Qaeda fighters in Benghazi, Libya and asked for help in fighting there.
The North Africa terrorist outfit; AQIM emerged from a group started in the late 1990s by Algerian fighters who, in 2007, pledged bayah (allegiance) to then Al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
The terrorist group has claimed responsibility for several attacks on troops and civilians across the Sahel region, including a 2016 attack on an upmarket hotel and restaurant in Burkina Faso that killed 30 people, mainly Westerners.
France has more than 5,000 troops deployed in its “anti-jihadist” Barkhane force in the Sahel.
Al-Qaeda network in the recent months has dealt huge blows after losing a number of its key leaders from it various affiliates.
