Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Africa Subsaharan

Burkina offers up to 275,000 euros for 'actively wanted terrorists'

2023-06-10

[AFRICANEWS] Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
's security services, plagued by recurrent jihadist violence, published a list of 20 "actively wanted terrorists" on Thursday, offering bonuses for their arrest or "neutralization" ranging from 150,000 to 275,000 euros.

The individuals, whose portraits have been broadcast on local media, are "actively wanted for participation or complicity in the planning or conduct of terrorist acts".

"If you provide information, such as to allow the arrest or the neutralization of one of these individuals, you will receive the amount indicated on the photo of the concerned", specifies a message from the ministry in charge of Security, published with the portraits.

At the top of the list are Sidibé Dramane alias Hamza and Diallo Moussa alias Abou Ganiou, aged 45 and 40 respectively. The Burkinabè authorities are offering 180 million CFA francs (about 275,000 euros) for the capture of each of them.

"Hamza" is close to Malian Amadou Koufa
Amadou Koufa

...Imperator of the Macina Liberation Front, one of the local groups within Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. MLF draws from the cattle-herding Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
tribe extant in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which appeared in 2015 for the purpose of jihading against the farming tribes of Dogon and Bambara. Amadou was reported killed in a French raid, but he arose from the dead sometime around January 2019, to continue jihading as usual...
, an important leader of the Support Group for Islam and Moslems (Jnim in Arabic), the main coalition affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Sahel.

Also on the list are leaders of katiba (combat unit of jihadist groups) including Dicko Hamadoun alias Suu-ka Maldê and Bolly Oumarou alias Oumi whose heads are priced at 175 million FCFA (265,000 euros) each.

The people sought are all Burkinabè, born for the majority in the northern region, with the exception of Sita Housseini alias Lookmann, a 33-year-old Nigerian.

Burkina has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.

The violence over the past seven years has killed more than 10,000 civilians and soldiers, according to NGOs, and more than two million internally displaced persons. According to the government, the army controls 65% of the national territory.

Burkina has been ruled since last September by a military junta headed by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power after a coup, the second in eight months.

The junta seems no better at clearing out the jihadis and restoring law and order than the civilians that preceded it. At least the Egyptians are getting significantly fewer suicide bombs and shoot’em-ups from their military rulers.

Link

Africa North

Al-Qaeda terrorists heap pressure on Mali's military, 18 toes up in coordinated attacks Wednesday

2022-07-28

[AFRICANEWS] Mali's armed forces said, Wednesday, murderous Moslems had simultaneously attacked a military camp located in the western town of Kalumba, and the camp in Sokolo.

The armed forces of Mali also denounced "terrorist infiltration attempts" in "the Hamadoun Bocary Barry camp" as well as an attempt at "the Air Force compound" in the city of Sevaré, central Mali.

In the last few days, the jihadists of the Sahel-based al-Qaeda nebula have stepped up the pressure on the Malian junta, with an unprecedented level of coordination of operations.

This comes at a time of deteriorating security context. The West African country has been plagued by war since 2012 and shaken by two coups d'état in two years (2020, 2021).The Group for the Support of Islam and Moslems (GSIM, JNIM in Arabic), affiliated to al-Qaeda, looks to extending its influence amid the confusion.

One of the lastest major event was the Friday attack on an army building in Kati, a garrison town 15km from Bamako and the heart of Mali's military apparatus where the president of the transitional authorities resides. One soldier was killed in the attack.

It is the first time that such a strategic and symbolic site is targetted. al-Qaeda jihadists had in recent years been targeting security posts in rural and peri-urban areas in Mali's north and centre.

STRATEGIC THREATS
It is a way to tell "(the authorities) that they can strike anywhere, as far away as possible" from their base, said a Malian observer of the security situation in Sévaré (centre).

The day before the Kati attack, six coordinated attacks were launched simultaneously in the centre and south of the country at 5am. A first. These southern regions (Sikasso, Koulikoro, Kayes), formerly spared by the foot soldiers of the jihad, are now a target.

Most of the attacks are claimed by the GSIM, created in 2017 by the merger of several factions: al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi, a pioneer of Sahelian jihad, born in Algeria in 2007), the groups Ansar Dine
...a mainly Tuareg group that controlled areas of Mali's northern desert together with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and MUJAO in early 2012...
of Malian Iyad Ag Ghali and al-Mourabitoune of the late Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and the Katiba Macina of Amadou Koufa
Amadou Koufa

...Imperator of the Macina Liberation Front, one of the local groups within Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. MLF draws from the cattle-herding Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
tribe extant in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which appeared in 2015 for the purpose of jihading against the farming tribes of Dogon and Bambara. Amadou was reported killed in a French raid, but he arose from the dead sometime around January 2019, to continue jihading as usual...

15 troops, 3 civilians killed in coordinated Mali attacks: Army

[AlAhram] At least 15 soldiers and three non-combatants were killed in coordinated "terrorist" attacks in Mali, the chronically unstable country's army said Wednesday, the latest deadly violence to rock the Sahel state.

In Kalumba, near the Mauritanian border, "the corpse count on the friendly side is 12, including three civilians from a road construction company", the army said in a statement.

The army corpse count in Sokolo, in central Mali, was six with 25 others maimed, five of them seriously.

A third attack, in centrally-located Mopti ended without casualties overnight.

Over the weekend, Mali's army said it had thwarted a new attack on a military camp in the centre of the country, two days after a deadly suicide kaboom in a strategic garrison town near the capital.

The Malian army has intensified its anti-jihadist operations in recent months, relying on what it describes as Russian instructors.

Despite a deteriorating security situation, the junta turned its back on La Belle France and its international partners, instead leaning on Russia to stem the threat posed by jihadists to Mali, as well as Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
and Niger.

Deutsche Welle adds:

This was the third attack in a week after al-Qaeda-linked militants set off two car bombs targeting Mali's main military base outside the capital, Bamako, on Friday, a day after a series of insurgent attacks.

In Wednesday's coordinated attacks, three military bases were targeted, according to the army statement.

The army said in a statement that 48 militants were killed in Sonkolo.

Link

Africa North

Mali army says dozen alleged jihadists killed in attack

2020-12-27

[AlAhram] The Malian army said Saturday it killed around a dozen alleged jihadists when a military convoy was attacked near the border with Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
The attack occurred on Thursday afternoon between Dinangourou and Mondoro, the army said on Twitter.

"On the enemy's side, around a dozen bad boyz were potted," but the army suffered no losses, it said.

From 2015, violence on civilians moved to the volatile centre of the country, starting with the Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
community, which had become associated with the jihadists after a firebrand
...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments...
Fulani preacher named Amadou Koufa
Amadou Koufa

...Imperator of the Macina Liberation Front, one of the local groups within Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. MLF draws from the cattle-herding Fulani tribe extant in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which appeared in 2015 for the purpose of jihading against the farming tribes of Dogon and Bambara. Amadou was reported killed in a French raid, but he arose from the dead sometime around January 2019, to continue jihading as usual...
set up an gang.

Last week, an exhaustive report into strife-torn Mali by UN Sherlocks said they had garnered evidence of war crimes committed by the security forces and others, and of crimes against humanity by jihadists and other gangs.

The 338-page investigation by the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali covers six years, from 2012 to 2018.

Link

Africa North

France kills 33 militants in Mali raid: president

2019-12-22

ABIDJAN/BAMAKO (Reuters) - French forces killed 33 Islamist militants in Mali on Saturday using attack helicopters, ground troops and a drone, near the border with Mauritania where a group linked to al Qaeda operates, French authorities said.

The raid about 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Mopti in Mali targeted the same forest area where France wrongly claimed last year it had killed Amadou Koufa,

...Salafist preacher and leader of the Macina Liberation Front, one of the local groups within Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. MLF draws from the cattle-herding Fulani tribe extant in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which appeared in 2015 for the purpose of jihading against the farming tribes of Dogon and Bambara...

one of the most senior Islamist militants being hunted by French forces in the Sahel.

A spokesman for the French army’s chief of staff declined to say at this stage whether Koufa was the target this time.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the operation in a speech to the French community in Ivory Coast’s main city of Abidjan, describing it as a major success.

"This morning ... we were able to neutralize 33 terrorists, take one prisoner and free two Malian gendarmes who had been held hostage," Macron said, a day after visiting French troops stationed in Ivory Coast.

In Saturday’s raid, soldiers aboard Tiger attack helicopters used a Reaper drone to guide them to the forest area where Koufa’s group Katiba Macina operates, French army command said.

Koufa is one of the top deputies to Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of Mali’s most prominent jihadi group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which has repeatedly attacked soldiers and civilians in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso.

The United Nations, France and the United States have poured billions of dollars into stabilizing the Sahel, an arid region of West Africa south of the Sahara desert, but with little success.

France, the former colonial power in a number of West African countries, has more than 4,000 soldiers in the region in its counter-terrorism taskforce Operation Barkhane. The United Nations has a 13,000-strong peacekeeping operation in Mali.

Link

Africa North

U.S. sanctions leader of Mali Islamist militant group

2019-11-08

[Jpost] The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on the leader of an Islamist murderous Moslem group in Mali called the Macina Liberation Front,

...one of the local groups within Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. MLF draws from the cattle-herding Fulani tribe extant in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which appeared in 2015 for the purpose of jihading against the farming tribes of Dogon and Bambara

the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement on its website on Thursday.

The sanctions target Amadou Koufa, a Salafist preacher and leader of the al Qaeda-linked group operating in Central Mali. French officials last year had said the murderous Moslem leader had died in a raid in the former French colony, but he appeared in a propaganda video in February.

U.S. sanctions block any assets Koufa may have under U.S. control and bars any persons or entities in the United States from any dealings or transactions with him.

U.S. officials in July added two other leaders of an al Qaeda affiliate in Mali to its global terrorism list.

Link

Africa North

Sahel: Red Cross suspends operations in Timbuktu, Mali, as violence escalates

2019-08-07

[NORTH-AFRICA] Twin attacks in Mali have killed four people, including two Malian soldiers, security sources said Tuesday, as the International Committee of the Red Thingy suspended activities in Timbuktu due to "growing insecurity". A gendarme was killed in an ambush the Segou region, east of the capital Bamako on Tuesday, while at the scene of a robbery, a security source said. A day earlier, two army trucks were targeted by an bomb in the Koro area near the Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
border, in which a soldier and two non-combatants were killed, a senior army officer told AFP. No one grabbed credit for the attacks.

They were made public as the ICRC temporarily suspended its work in the northern city of Timbuktu following a carjacking at gunpoint close to the Geneva-based organization’s office. "We ask for measures to improve security in town and in the region," said the head of ICRC’s Mali delegation Jean-Nicolas Marti in a tweet. In a statement, the ICRC said gunnies stole one of its vehicles on Monday in the middle of the city and that several other thefts had happened in the region this year. "This latest incident is symptomatic of the level of insecurity prevailing in the city and region, which has reached an unacceptable threshold for the population," the ICRC said.

Despite military help from La Belle France and the United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
, Mali’s government has struggled to quell the violence that began in the north of the country in 2012, sparked by radical Islamist and Tuareg militias. Ethnic violence in central Mali surged after a predominantly Fulani
Fulani herdsman herding

... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
jihadist group led by preacher Amadou Koufa emerged in 2015. They recruit mainly from among the Fulani ‐ primarily cattle breeders and traders ‐ and they have clashed with the Dogon and Bambara ‐ farmers who have formed their own self-defence militias. Whole areas of the country remain beyond the control of Malian, French and UN forces.

Link

Africa North

Thousands of Malians demonstrate to demand end to massacres

2019-06-22

[Al Jazeera] Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Mali's capital to demand an end to attacks in the centre of the country where there has been an increase in ethnic violence.

Police said 3,000 attended the rally on Friday in Bamako, while organisers put the number of the demonstrators at least 5,000.

Ethnic tensions in central Mali have surged since an gang led by preacher Amadou Koufa emerged in 2015.

The group recruits mainly from among the Fulani
Fulani herdsman herding

... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
- primarily cattle breeders and traders - and it has clashed with the Dogon and Bambara - traditionally sedentary farmers who have formed their own self-defence militias.

Friday's demonstration was organised by a youth association demanding the disarming of militia and for people to "say no to hate" whatever their ethnicity.

"Too much blood has been spilled. It has to stop or there will be no life left in the centre of Mali," demonstrator Habitatou Diallo said.

There has been a swathe of mass killings in recent months. At least 488 Fulani civilians died in attacks carried out in the central regions of Mopti and Segou between January 1, 2018, and May 16, 2019, according to the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
mission in Mali (MINUSMA). In the same period, armed Fulanis had "caused 63 deaths" among civilians in the Mopti region.

In late March, 160 Fulanis were slaughtered, in the one the bloodiest attacks in Mali's history, while fresh ethnic violence erupted

like lava from a volcano this week leading to 41 further deaths in the ethnic Dogon villages of Gangafani and Yoro - the latest in a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks between the warring communities despite the army sending in troops.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who rejects the idea of an "inter-ethnic conflict", on Thursday named the former interim president Dioncounda Traore as high representative for the region to report back to him.

The Red Thingy, meanwhile, said on Friday that some 2,800 people fleeing the violence had taken refuge in the town of Bandiagara in the east of Mopti region where aid including utensils and bedding had been distributed.

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, visiting the country on Friday, said in a statement "the situation has reached what one could call an alert level with the dreadful massacres of the past few weeks and days.

Link

Africa North

At least 95 killed in central Mali village attack

2019-06-11

[AlAhram] Attackers believed to belong to the Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
ethnic group raided a rival Dogon village in central Mali overnight, killing at least 95 people and burning houses to the ground, local and government officials said on Monday.

Violence between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders has killed hundreds since January, including an attack in March in which button men killed more than 150 Fulani, one of the worst acts of bloodshed in Mali's recent history.

Sunday's raid took place in the Sangha district, where Fulanis from the neighbouring Bankass district descended on a Dogon village after dark, Bankass mayor Moulaye Guindo told Rooters on Monday.

"Armed men, apparently Fulani, fired at the population and burnt the village," said Siriam Kanoute, an official for the nearby town of Bandiagara.

Sangha mayor Ali Dolo told Rooters 95 charred bodies had been found so far, but that the corpse count was likely to rise as the village was still ablaze.

"On a population of around 300 inhabitants, only 50 responded to the roll call," said Dolo.

A security ministry front man confirmed the attack, but said the assailants had not been identified. The government later vowed to find those responsible.

"The government of Mali presents its deepest condolences to mourning families and assures all measures will be taken to arrest and punish the authors of this carnage," the communications ministry said in a statement.

An Nahar adds:

It came less than three weeks after nearly 160 members of the Fulani ethnic group were slaughtered by a group identified as Dogon.

A brutal cycle of violence in central Mali, an ethnic mosaic, began after a predominantly Fulani jihadist group led by preacher Amadou Koufa emerged in 2015.

It started targeting the Bambara and Dogon ethnic groups, which in turn started to form "self-defence groups" of their own. The Fulani are primarily cattle breeders and traders, while the Bambara and Dogon are traditionally sedentary farmers.

On May 16, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) announced it had recorded "at least 488 deaths" in attacks on Fulanis in the central regions of Mopti and Segou since January 2018.

In the bloodiest raid, about 160 Fulani villagers were slaughtered on March 23 at Ogossagou, near the border with Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
, by suspected Dogon hunters.

According to MINUSMA, armed Fulanis had "caused 63 deaths" among civilians in the Mopti region, also since January 2018.

"It's a shock, a tragedy," MINUSMA chief Mahamat Saleh Annadif said of the latest bloodletting, noting that it came at a time "when we are discussing the renewal of the (MINUSMA) mandate."

There are currently about 14,700 troops and police deployed in Mali, which ranks as the most dangerous UN mission, with 125 peacekeepers killed in attacks since deployment in 2013.

Donor countries to MINUSMA are to to meet at the U.N. on Wednesday. A decision on renewing the force's mandate is expected by June 27.

MINUSMA was established after radical Islamist and Tuareg militias seized the north of the country in 2012.

The gunnies were pushed back by French troops in 2013. A peace agreement signed in 2015 by the Bamako government and gangs aimed at restoring stability.

But the accord failed to stop jihadist violence, which then shifted to central Mali, inflaming ancient inter-ethnic hostility.

Koufa in March 2017 joined the newly-formed Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the leading jihadist alliance in the Sahel region, with links to al-Qaida. Its leader is Iyad Ag Ghaly.

Link

Africa North

Crisis Group Urges 'Dialogue' between Mali Government, Jihadists

2019-05-30

[AnNahar] Mali's government should consider "dialogue" with jihadists waging an insurgency in the west African state, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank suggested Tuesday, an idea promptly rejected by Bamako.

The idea of talking to jihadists may seem ludicrous to some, said the ICG, but insisted all avenues should be explored to protect civilians reeling from inter-communal violence in central Mali, fuelled by the Islamist revolt.

In a report, the ICG did not suggest halting military operations against Katiba Macina, the gang of radical Islamist preacher Amadou Koufa behind a four-year-old insurgency.

Link

Africa North

Jihadists Deny Mali Leader Killed in French-Led Attack

2018-12-13

[Ananahar] al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Tuesday denied that Malian jihadist leader Amadou Koufa

... a radical preacher and one of the top deputies in Mali's most prominent jihadi group, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM). JNIM is an umbrella organization of regional terrorist groups including al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) Sahara Emirate, al-Mourabitoun, and local groups Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and Ansar al-Din (AAD)...

had been killed during a November raid by French forces, according to a statement released by the Mauritanian news agency Alakhbar.

International media reported that Koufa was killed along with 34 others but he was not at the site and he was neither killed nor maimed, AQIM chief Abdelmalik Droukdel

... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb....
said, according to the transcript of an audio recording translated into English and broadcast by Alakhbar, which frequently publishes statements attributed to bad boy groups.

Malian and French authorities had said Amadou Koufa was killed in a raid led by French troops in the centre of the country.

Koufa, a radical preacher, surfaced three years ago and was blamed for several violent attacks and for stoking sectarian conflict.

Droukdel claimed the announcement on the disappearance of the jihadist was a "manoeuvre" by Gay Paree to divert the attention of the French people from what was happening in the street, an allusion to the "yellow vest" protests.

On November 23, the French army said it had conducted an operation the previous night in central Mali, Koufa's stronghold, which resulted in "30 terrorists" being "neutralised".

French armed forces minister Florence Parly had hailed the action "which made it possible to neutralise an important terrorist detachment in which was probably one of Iyad Ag Ghali's main assistants, Amadou Koufa".

Malian military sources had confirmed the death of Koufa, who had appeared in a video two weeks earlier with Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of the Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM), which has repeatedly struck military and civilian targets in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
"The terrorist Amadou Koufa died of his injuries after the French military intervention, following information provided by the Malian army, General Abdoulaye Cisse, chief of operations of the Malian army, said.

La Belle France helped Malian forces stave off a jihadist insurgency that took control of large parts of the north in 2012, but large swathes of the country remain out of the government's control.

The former colonial ruler has deployed the 4,500-member Barkhane force in the region to repel attacks and stem insurgency.

Link

Africa Subsaharan

Nigeria: Boko Haram Kidnaps 15 Girls

2018-11-25

[All Africa] Suspected Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
button men kidnapped 15 girls overnight in a village near Toumour, southeastern Niger, the local mayor said on Saturday.

Boukar Mani Orthe, the mayor of the town in Niger's Diffa region near the border with Nigeria, said about 50 unidentified gunnies seized the girls in a village about nine kilometres from the town centre.

On Thursday suspected Boko Haram fighters killed eight people working at French drilling company Foraco's water well site in Toumour.

Boko Haram has been waging an insurrection since 2009 aimed at establishing an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria
... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border...
. It has launched repeated attacks into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
The violence has killed thousands of civilians and forced millions to flee their homes in the large Lake Chad basin region.

Kidnapping of schoolgirls has been a Boko Haram horror mark, since its fighters in 2014 kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, in Nigeria.

It also staged this year, another major kidnap of schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe state.

In Mali, French forces said they "put out of action" some 30 Islamist Lion of Islams, possibly including veteran Malian jihadist leader Amadou Koufa, during a raid in the central Mali region of Mopti.

The French army, which has about 4,500 troops in West Africa battling Islamist Lion of Islams, did not specify whether the jihadists had all been killed or taken prisoner. The operation took place with air support on Thursday night, it said.

Link

Africa North

Mali says it confirms death of veteran jihadist leader Koufa

2018-11-25

[AlAhram] Mali's army said on Saturday it had confirmed the death of Amadou Koufa, one of the most prominent jihadist leaders in the country, in a raid by French forces on Thursday night.

"I confirm that Amadou Koufa was killed during the operation," Malian army front man Colonel Diarran Kone told Rooters. He declined to elaborate.

La Belle France's army had said on Friday that Koufa may have been killed in the operation in the central Mopti region that "put out of action" about 30 Islamist holy warriors.

Koufa, a radical preacher, was one of the top deputies to Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of Mali's most prominent jihadi group, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM),

...umbrella organization of regional terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) Sahara Emirate, al-Mourabitoun, and local groups Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and Ansar al-Din (AAD)...

which has repeatedly attacked soldiers and civilians in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
Those attacks have shifted Mali's six-year-old Islamist insurgency from the remote desert north closer to its populous south and prompted La Belle France and the United States to deploy thousands of troops across West Africa's semi-arid region.

Link

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