Mali’s army announces killing of top terrorist leader in Sahel region

KIGALI, Rwanda 

Malian forces have killed one of the top terrorist leaders in the Sahel, the army announced Tuesday.

Abu Huzeifa, alias Higgo, was killed on Sunday morning during an operation in the Indelimane sector of the northern region of Menaka near the Nigerien border, the military said in a statement.

He served as the military commander of the terror group Daesh/ISIS, or Islamic State in the Sahel, in the Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso tri-border area.

Huzeifa is said to have taken part in a 2017 attack near the village of Tongo Tongo in Niger in which four American special forces soldiers and four Nigerien soldiers were killed.

The US then put a bounty on his head, offering up to $5 million for information leading to his whereabouts.

The army said Huzeifa was of foreign nationality, with reports indicating he could have originated from Sahrawi. Huzeifa’s group was reportedly active in Mali’s Menaka region, where it was blamed for several terror attacks against Malians.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger account for most of the deaths from terrorism in the region, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2024, a report published by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace.

The three countries are facing spiraling insecurity, with terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Daesh/ISIS moving from Mali to other neighbors in the Sahel region.