The French army said today it had killed a top jihadist commander in a military operation in northern Mali, describing it as a heavy blow to Islamists operating in West Africa.
French forces in the northern Gao region carried out an operation alongside Malian troops which led to the "neutralisation of about a dozen members of an armed terrorist group, including Ahmed el Tilemsi," said army spokesman Gilles Jaron.
Malian Defence Minister Ba N'Dao specified in a statement that "six other terrorists were killed and three taken prisoner" in the operation.
With a string of kidnappings of westerners and attacks under his belt, Tilemsi was described by a terrorism expert as a "big fish" and right-hand man of notorious Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
Tilemsi was the leader of Belmokhtar's Al-Murabitoun group in Mali and was earlier this year declared a "specially designated global terrorist" by the US State Department, which offered a USD 5-million (four-million-euro) reward for information leading to his capture.
"We've really hit Al-Murabitoun hard," said Jaron.
Tilemsi has a long history with jihadist groups operating in the Sahel region, having been a member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) before becoming one of the founding members of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a splinter group aimed at spreading jihad throughout the region.
MUJAO was one of a number of Islamist groups that occupied northern Mali last year, imposing a brutal interpretation of Islamic sharia law characterised by amputations, beatings and executions, before being ousted by the French-led military intervention.
In August 2013, it merged with a group run by Belmokhtar to form Al-Murabitoun, which loosely translates as "the guardians" and claimed to seek revenge on France for its actions in Mali.
