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Jihadists deny Mali leader killed in French-led attack
NOUAKCHOTT, Dec 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
Tuesday denied that Malian jihadist leader Amadou Koufa 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 wounded, AQIM chief
Abdelmalek Droukdel said, according to the transcript of an audio recording
translated into English and broadcast by Alakhbar, which frequently publishes
statements attributed to extremist 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 Paris 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 Muslims (GSIM), which has repeatedly struck military and
civilian targets in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso.
“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.
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.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1210 hrs