Emmanuel Macron has said French military forces have killed the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, claiming “another major success” in the fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel.
The French president, who recently moved to reduce French troop deployment in the troubled sub-Saharan region amid broad consensus that the intervention was not achieving its aim, gave no further details in his statement on Wednesday night, though he mentioned French casualties.
“This evening, the nation’s thoughts are with all its heroes who have died in the Sahel for France … with the grieving families, with all its wounded. Their sacrifice has not been in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue our efforts in this battle.”
Sahrawi was the historic leader of Islamic State in the Sahel region of west Africa and his group targeted US soldiers in a deadly attack in Niger in 2017, Macron’s office said.
In August 2020, the extremist leader personally ordered the killing of six French charity workers and their Nigerien driver, it added.
Sahrawi pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2015, and was accepted as its leader in the borderlands of Mali and Niger the following year.
Macron recently said France’s deployment of more than 4,000 troops in Mali would soon be dramatically scaled down, with the remnants merged into a broader international mission. The force has been stationed in the country for almost a decade and has struggled to stem the expansion of the territory contested by groups linked to IS and al-Qaida.
Mali has been destabilised in recent months by political turmoil in Bamako, where soldiers took power in May in the second change of government this year. The deployment has become increasingly unpopular in France.
The death of Sahrawi, if confirmed, will be a blow to IS but comes after a series of significant recent victories for the group’s local affiliates and a shift in strategy that has reinforced its position across much of the continent.
Following recent gains in Nigeria, the Sahel, in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, IS propaganda published by the group’s leadership in its heartland in the Middle East is increasingly stressing sub-Saharan Africa as a new front which may compensate the group for significant setbacks elsewhere.
The recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban is likely to embolden Islamist militant groups across the continent, especially those which are committed to local goals and currently eschew long-range attacks on the west.
Detailed accounts of recent internal debates in Nigeria, where Islamic State West Africa Province recently routed Boko Haram, suggest a new emphasis by IS in Africa on providing security and basic services to local communities.
Though strategies differ according to local conditions, the new bid by the group to create zones of “jihadi governance” could pose a major challenge to weak, corrupt and inefficient national authorities, analysts fear.
