PARIS: The head of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, who was wanted for deadly attacks on US soldiers and foreign aid workers, has been killed in an operation by French troops.
Adnan Abu Walid Al-Sahrawi was “neutralized by French forces,” President Emmanuel Macron tweeted early Thursday.
“This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel,” Macron said, without giving the location or details of the operation.
Defense Minister Florence Parly said Sahrawi died following a strike by France’s Barkhane force, which battles militants in the Sahel.
“It is a decisive blow against this terrorist group,” she tweeted. “Our fight continues.”
The militant leader was behind the killing of French aid workers in 2020 and was also wanted by the United States over a deadly 2017 attack on US troops in Niger.
Sahrawi in 2015 formed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), which is blamed for most of the militant attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
The flashpoint “tri-border” area is frequently targeted by ISGS and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM).
ISGS has carried out deadly attacks targeting civilians and soldiers in the region.
The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information on the whereabouts of Sahrawi, who was wanted over an October 4, 2017 attack in Niger that killed four US Special Forces and four Niger troops.
On August 9, 2020, in Niger, the ISGS head personally ordered the killing of six French aid workers and their Niger guides and drivers.
In late 2019, the group carried out a series of large-scale attacks against military bases in Mali and Niger.
A former member of Western Sahara’s Polisario Front independence movement, Sahrawi joined Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and had also co-led Mujao, a Malian Islamist group responsible for kidnapping Spanish aid workers in Algeria and a group of Algerian diplomats in Mali in 2012.
The French military has killed several high-ranking members of ISGS under its strategy of targeting militant leaders since the start of its military intervention in Mali in 2013.
In June this year, Macron announced a major scaleback in France’s anti-militant Barkhane force in the Sahel after more than eight years of military presence in the vast region to refocus on counter-terrorism operations and supporting local forces.
“The nation is thinking this evening of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all its wounded,” Macron added in another tweet after Sahrawi was killed.
“Their sacrifice is not in vain. With our African, European and American partners, we will continue this fight.”
The north of Mali fell under militant control in 2012 until they were pushed out of the cities by France’s military intervention in 2013.
But Mali, an impoverished and landlocked nation home to at least 20 ethnic groups, continues to battle militant attacks and intercommunal violence, which often spills over to neighboring countries.
French forces kill Daesh Sahel militant leader wanted by US
https://arab.news/rtwbg
French forces kill Daesh Sahel militant leader wanted by US
- Adnan Abu Walid Al-Sahrawi in 2015 formed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara
- Sahrawi died following a strike by France’s Barkhane force, which battles militants in the Sahel
Syria battles forest fires for third day as Turkiye sends help
Syria’s civil defense said a volunteer firefighter suffered from smoke inhalation
QASTAL MA’AF, Syria: Syrian emergency workers were battling forest fires raging in the coastal province of Latakia on Saturday for a third day in tough conditions as neighboring Turkiye sent assistance.
An AFP correspondent saw strong winds fanning the flames in forest areas and farmland in Qastal Maaf, around a dozen kilometers (eight miles) from the Turkish border, as residents continued to flee with what they could carry.
Some residential areas in the region were evacuated a day earlier.
Syria’s ministry for emergencies and disaster management said teams from Turkiye began helping on Saturday morning “as part of regional coordination to face the fires,” with the assistance including two aircraft and eight fire trucks.
Turkiye, a key supporter of Syria’s new authorities, has been battling its own fires in recent days, including near the Syrian border.
The AFP correspondent saw helicopters bearing the Turkish flag flying over Qastal Maaf assisting firefighters on the ground.
Syria’s civil defense said a volunteer firefighter suffered from smoke inhalation and a service vehicle caught fire.
More than 60 Syrian civil defense and other teams were fighting fires across several areas of Latakia province, the ministry said.
It cited “very difficult conditions, with the explosion of war remnants and mines,” strong winds and high temperatures, adding that mountainous terrain was hampering efforts to reach some blazes.
More than six months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, Syria is still reeling from more than a decade of civil war that also left munitions and ordnance scattered across the country.
With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves, low rainfall and major forest fires.
In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years.”
Nine dead in Egypt road crash: health ministry
- The crash in Menoufiya was the second deadly accident on the same highway in a week
CAIRO: Nine people were killed and 11 injured in northern Egypt on Saturday when two minibuses collided on a busy highway in the Nile Delta, the health ministry said.
The crash in Menoufiya, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Cairo, was the second deadly accident on the same highway in just a week.
On June 27, 19 people were killed, most of them teenage girls working as day laborers, when a truck collided with their minibus.
Egypt’s roads claim thousands of lives each year, with crashes often blamed on reckless driving, poor maintenance and weak law enforcement.
Erdogan says asked Trump to intervene over shootings at Gaza aid centers
- “You need to intervene here so that these people are not killed’,” Erdogan said
- Erdogan said ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war had created a new opportunity to end the fighting in Gaza
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he asked US President Donald Trump to intervene to stop shootings at Gaza aid centers, which the UN says have killed more than 500 people.
Erdogan said when he met Trump at a NATO summit in late June, he asked him to step in and halt the bloodshed.
“I asked him to intervene in the Gaza process telling him, ‘You are the one who will best manage this process with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’. There are people who are being killed in food queues in particular.
“You need to intervene here so that these people are not killed’,” he said, his remarks reported Saturday by Anadolu state news agency.
Israel blocked supplies going into Gaza in early March, deepening a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn territory, but on May 26, a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by Israel and the US, started delivering supplies.
However its operations have since been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations from its distribution sites in Gaza, where the Israeli military says it is seeking to destroy Hamas militants.
The UN Human Rights Office said Friday more than 500 people had been killed in the vicinity of the GHF sites.
Israel’s army has blamed Hamas for the incidents and this week, GHF’s chairman Johnnie Moore denied any Palestinians have been killed in or near its four distribution sites.
Erdogan said ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war had created a new opportunity to end the fighting in Gaza.
“The ceasefire between Iran and Israel has also opened a door for Gaza. Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated its good will in this regard,” he said just days after his spy chief and foreign minister met separately with senior Hamas officials.
US pressure on Israel would be “decisive” in securing the success of the latest proposal for a 60-day truce in Gaza, he remarked, saying the issue of guarantees was “especially important.”
“In the event of a ceasefire, the international community needs to invest rapidly in reconstruction projects. If a permanent ceasefire can be achieved, a path to permanent peace in the region can be opened.”
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says two of its US aid workers injured in Gaza
- GHF says two Americans in stable condition after grenade attack
- Gaza officials say dozens killed by Israeli military in 24 hours
JERUSALEM: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Saturday that two American aid workers had suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a targeted attack at a food distribution site in Gaza.
The US- and Israeli-backed GHF said in a statement that the injured Americans were receiving medical treatment and were in a stable condition.
“The attack – which preliminary information indicates was carried out by two assailants who threw two grenades at the Americans – occurred at the conclusion of an otherwise successful distribution in which thousands of Gazans safely received food,” the GHF said.
In addition to aid workers, the GHF employs private US military contractors tasked with providing security at their sites.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. The Israeli military had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.
Gazan authorities separately reported dozens of Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli military in the past 24 hours, including near aid distribution sites.
The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza on Thursday had warned residents of the coastal enclave not to assist the GHF, saying deadly incidents near its food distribution sites endangered hungry Gazans.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, bypassing traditional aid channels, including the United Nations which says the US-based organization is neither impartial nor neutral.
The GHF has said it has delivered more than 52 million meals to Palestinians in five weeks, while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted.”
Since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19, the UN says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid handouts. A senior UN official said last week that the majority of people killed were trying to reach aid distribution sites of the GHF.
Footage released by GHF has shown at least one aid site to be overrun with no clear distribution process. Palestinians have described the sites as chaotic.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 70 people have been killed in the territory by the Israeli military in the last 24 hours, including 23 near aid distribution sites.
The ministry did not specify where or how exactly they had been killed.
Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas, according to the Gaza health ministry, launched after the militant group’s surprise attack on Israel in October 7, 2023.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in that attack and took another 251 hostages into Gaza. There are 50 hostages still held in Gaza, of which 20 are believed to be alive.
Hamas says ready to start talks ‘immediately’ on Gaza ceasefire
- Announcement came after militant group held consultations with other Palestinian factions
- Israel meanwhile said Saturday it was still mulling its response to a positive reaction from Hamas
JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, where the civil defense agency said Israel’s ongoing offensive killed 20 people on Saturday.
The announcement came after it held consultations with other Palestinian factions and before a visit on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where President Donald Trump is pushing for an end to the war, now in its 21st month.
“The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place” the terms of a draft US-backed truce proposal received from mediators, the militant group said in a statement.
Israel meanwhile said Saturday it was still mulling its response to a positive reaction from Hamas to the latest US-sponsored proposal for a Gaza ceasefire.
“No decision has been made yet on that issue,” a government official said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Israel’s security cabinet was due to meet later on Saturday, after the end of the Jewish sabbath at sundown, Israeli media reported.
Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it supported ceasefire talks, but demanded “guarantees” that Israel “will not resume its aggression” once hostages held in Gaza are freed.
Trump, when asked about Hamas’s response aboard Air Force One on Friday, said: “That’s good. They haven’t briefed me on it. We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza.”
The conflict in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants.
On Friday, Netanyahu again pledged to bring home the hostages, after coming under massive domestic pressure over their fate.
Two previous ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have seen temporary halts in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel’s rejection of Hamas’s demand for guarantees that any new ceasefire will be lasting.
A previous round of talks broke down in May with Hamas and Israel trading blame for its failure.
The Palestinian militant group said it had given a “positive response” to a truce proposal from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, but its request for a guarantee that hostilities would not resume had been rejected by Israel.
A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations told AFP earlier this week that the latest proposal included “a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip” — thought to number 22 — “in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.”
Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Israeli military operations killed 20 people across the war-battered territory on Saturday.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency.
Bassal said five of the dead were killed in a strike on a school in Gaza City.
A second strike near another school in the city where displaced civilians had found shelter killed three people and wounded around 10, including children, he said.
Many Gazans have sought shelter in schools and other public buildings since the war began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific strikes without precise coordinates.
The civil defense agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 52 people on Friday.
The Hamas attack of October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,268 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
