The French military announced that its CT operations in Mali had killed Yahia Djouadi, a senior Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) responsible for finance and logistics. According to a statement released by the military; Djouadi, an Algerian also known as Abu Ammar al-Jazairi, was killed at the end of February around 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Timbuktu in central Mali.
Djouadi has been very instrumental in the unification and progression of all the al Qaeda-aligned groups in the Maghreb. He was also a former commander of Al-Qaeda’s Libyan operations, Djouadi fled to Mali in 2019 and settled in the Timbuktu region, helping organize the group and coordinating supplies, financing, and logistics.
The operation comes as France prepares to pull out of Mali after a falling out with the current military leadership in the country. This will mean that over 2400 troops deployed in Mali will be redeployed to other nations in the Sahel where the threat from Al-Qaeda, GSIM, and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) groups is still very great.
