Abu Huzeifa, the head of the Islamic State in West Africa, was slain by Mali soldiers during a major operation in the Menaka region. This was revealed by the authorities on Monday’s state television.
Following the operation in the Indelimane region on Sunday, they verified Huzeifa’s death, but they withheld further information.
Under its Rewards for Justice programme, the US State Department is willing to pay up to $5 million for information on Huzeifa. He is charged with taking part in the 2017 attack in Niger that claimed the lives of four US and four Nigerien troops.
Groups connected to al Qaeda and Islamic State have carried out many attacks in Mali, Niger, and nearby Burkina Faso over the last ten years. This has made the central Sahel region of West Africa unstable.
According to the International Organization for Migration, over 3 million people in the region have been displaced by the ongoing security and humanitarian crisis as of March.
