Iyad ag Ghali

Meanwhile the Tuareg Iyad ag Ghali's Jamaat Nusrat ul Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the home-grown Ansaroul Islam outfit have also been staging fresh attacks...

After JMIN leader Iyad ag Ghali Koufa was the most wanted man in Mali and the Malian army lost no time claiming responsibility...

Like his counterpart and later boss Iyad ag Ghali whom he met in the first decade of this century Koufa was radicalised by Salafist preachers from Pakistan...

The other partners are the Front de libération du Macina led by the firebrand preacher Amadou Koufa and the largely Tuareg Ansar Eddine under the leadership of Iyad ag Ghali which vandalised Timbuktu in 2012 (AC Vol 53 No 8 Rebel against rebel – against the rest)...

Last year's national entente conference called for dialogue with Koufa and Iyad ag Ghaly the Tuareg jihadist...

Chafi's most valuable interlocutor former Mouvement pour l'unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l'Ouest (MUJAO) leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar has lost influence since the formation of Jamaat Nusrat ul Islam wal Muslimin (Support Group for Islam and Muslims JNIM) and the rise of desert veteran Iyad ag Ghali to the top of that new group (AC Vol 58 No 7 Combat and compromise)...

Sheikh Ag Aoussa chief of military staff of the Haut conseil de l'unité de l'Azawad (HCUA) a key component of the CMA was reputed to have maintained contacts with Iyad ag Ghali founder of the Tuareg jihadist faction Ansar Eddine...

Iyad ag Ghali leader of the Malian Tuareg jihadist group Ansar Eddine which once launched a column of fighters on Bamako is in nominal charge (AC Vol 53 No 7 Rebels and putschists)...

In the meantime three other jihadist group leaders announced a merger on 2 March: Ansar Eddine of Iyad ag Ghali which vandalised Timbuktu in 2012; Al Mourabitoun of Algeria's Mokhtar Belmokhtar which claimed the hotel attacks in Bamako and Ouagadougou; and the FLM...