Iyad ag Ghali

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...

Mahmoud Dicko the head of Mali's High Islamic Council this week announced that in September he had received a letter from Iyad ag Ghali leader of Ansar Eddine one of the Malian Tuareg jihadist groups suspected of being behind the Tazalit raid announcing a unilateral ceasefire...

Ag Aoussa was reputed to have led the January 2012 massacre of a captured army garrison at Aguelhoc and was suspected of maintaining recent contacts with Iyad ag Ghali...

In recent weeks an audio recording made in October has emerged in which Ansar Eddine leader Iyad ag Ghali condemns the Algiers deal...

Having claimed responsibility for attacks in the west and far south of Mali in late June Ansar's leader Iyad ag Ghali is reportedly still living in the Algerian half of the border community of Tin Zaouatine in Tamanrasset Province...

In April a split in the MNLA between Colonel Mohammed ag Najem and Bilal ag Acherif nephew of veteran jihadist Ansar Eddine leader Iyad ag Ghali weakened the MNLA forces in Ménaka (AC Vol 55 No 6 Talking Timbuktu)...

There are unconfirmed rumours that some jihadists may have fought alongside the MNLA in Kidal and even that the veteran Tuareg troublemaker Iyad ag Ghali may have been present...