The U.S. had claimed to have killed Belmokhtar in a June airstrike, though this was later revealed not to be the case.
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Operation Barkhane spans five countries, and primarily consists of counter-terrorism maneuvers against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Mourabitoun and Ansar Dine.
“Al Mourabitoun is a mixture of fundamentalists and bandits, who traffic weapons and drugs to finance themselves”, he said. The USA government also believes the two groups staged the attack, a government source said.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced the death toll and said seven people were wounded in the attack, which has been claimed by jihadist group Al Mourabitoun and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Those interventions prompted increased threats against France and French interests from Islamic extremist groups, from al Qaeda’s North African arm to IS. “Their strategy has been to launch these fairly dramatic attacks”, said Gregory Mann, professor of West African history at Columbia University in NY.
At least 27 people were killed in the siege, which Al-Murabitoun claimed responsibility for in a post on Twitter. They have also been blamed for several kidnappings of foreigners.
Reports of gunfire surfaced Friday morning on social media, though Lt. Col. Diarran Kone, an adviser with Mali’s defense ministry, says it is not yet clear what has happened.
Similarly, longstanding radical and political actor Iyad Ag Ghali’s Ansar Al-Din, created in 2011, connected Tuareg fighters from AQIM with newer recruits from Tuareg and other groups, especially in the area around the northern city of Kidal.
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The militants were scattered by a French offensive in January 2013 but insurgents have continued to carry out sporadic attacks despite the presence of a few 3,000 French troops in the region and several thousand United Nations peacekeepers in Mali.
