The Islamic State’s leader in the Greater Sahara, Adnan Abou Walid al Sahraoui has been killed by French forces, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday, calling the IS head’s killing “a major success” for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel. The head of ISIS was wanted for deadly attacks on US soldiers and foreign aid workers.
“This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel,” Macron said, without giving the location or details of the operation. “The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded,” Macron tweeted. “Their sacrifice is not in vain.” For former colonial power France, Adnan Abou Walid Sahraoui was the most wanted jihadist in the Sahel. He headed a branch of the Islamic State group, which is highly active in the border region linking Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, reported France 24. Rumors of the militant leader’s death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified. The jihadist leader was behind the killing of French aid workers in 2020 and was also wanted by the United States over a deadly 2017 attack on US troops in Niger.
Sahrawi in 2015 formed ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), which is blamed for most of the jihadist attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Niger’s military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.
