Top Al-Qaeda Operative Killed in Mali Operation

By Staff, Agencies

The leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM], the Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdal, was killed by French forces in northern Mali, according to French Defense Minister Florence Parly.

"Several of his close associates" have also been "neutralized," Parly added without further details.

Droukdel was killed on Thursday near the Algerian border, where the group has bases from which it has carried out attacks and abductions of Westerners in the sub-Saharan Sahel zone.

AQIM emerged from a group started in the late 1990s by radical Algerians, who in 2007 pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

France has deployed more than 5,000 troops to combat terrorist groups in the region -- a largely lawless expanse stretching over Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, where drugs and arms flow through porous borders.

Northern Mali is the site of frequent clashes between rival armed groups, as well as a haven for terrorist activity.

France also claimed on Friday to have captured a leader of Daesh [the Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIS/ISIL’ group] in the Greater Sahara group, which carries out frequent attacks over Niger's western borders.