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Sophie Petronin's release: four questions about released jihadists and their group

2020-10-10T15:45:56.755Z


About 200 people were released by Bamako. Some jihadist cadres are said to be among the released prisoners.


After the release of Sophie Pétronin after four years of captivity, many questions arise about the negotiations that led to this happy ending.

Because to achieve its goal and obtain the release of the politician Soumaïla Cissé - Bamako's number one objective - the Malian authorities have agreed to release many prisoners.

This choice is not without causing embarrassment on the French side and even frustration among soldiers seeing jihadists they have captured risk returning to the field while Barkhane has already lost 45 soldiers since 2014.

How many jihadists have been released by Bamako?

After their release over the weekend and at the beginning of the week, these prisoners were transported to the region of Tessalit, in the north of the country, and that of Niono in central Mali.

Difficult to have an exact figure as to the number of detainees released.

Monday, AFP, citing "sources close to the negotiations", evoked the release of "more than a hundred jihadists condemned or suspected", but they would be about 200 to have been finally released.

In a statement circulating on the Telegram messaging app, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, which detained Sophie Pétronin, advanced the release of 206 "lions of Islam who fought the Crusader invaders and operatives. apostates ”, indicates Liberation.

Are these 200 or so released prisoners really all jihadists?

“The majority are not jihadists.

There were people who gravitated around, explained on France 24 the journalist Wassim Nasr, specialist in jihadist networks.

[…] There was everything.

There were of course jihadists among them.

"

#France #Mali very locally the most important lies in the release of detainees who are not involved in the jihadist movement, a maneuver which will be to the credit of #JNIM #AQMI @ France24_fr https://t.co/3xwMuPr6p3

- Wassim Nasr (@SimNasr) October 9, 2020

Were there figures of jihadism among them?

The vast majority of detainees released from Malian prisons would not be executives of the jihadist movement.

It would rather be "very small fish that had not been judged," summarized a source in the World.

On his blog, Claude Moniquet, expert in counterterrorism, evokes “little hands”.

"Only between 10 and 20 released detainees can be considered 'dangerous' or, at least, 'interesting'," he said.

Among these "interesting" profiles would appear several figures of jihadism in Africa, including Fawaz Ould Ahmed, Mauritanian also known as "Ibrahim 10".

Arrested four years ago, he is involved in several deadly attacks, including the one before targeting a restaurant in Bamako in 2015. Another name well known to the intelligence services: Abou Dardar, former leader of the Mujao (Movement for uniqueness and jihad in West Africa) who surrendered to French soldiers in 2014 before being handed over to Malian authorities.

On the other hand, contradictory information circulates around Mimi Ould Baba, logistician of the large-scale attacks that bloodied Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Grand-Bassam (Côte-d'Ivoire) in 2016 and arrested a year later.

Released according to Le Monde, he would ultimately still be in prison according to the African News Agency because of "pressure from the American government (which) ultimately prevented his release".

Mimi Ould Baba was sentenced in absentia by the United States courts for having killed an American national in the attack on Ouagadougou.

Who is the group that took Sophie Petronin hostage?

Like Soumaïla Cissé, Sophie Pétronin was in the hands of Jamaat Nosrat al-Islam wal-Mouslimin, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM).

Linked to Al-Qaeda, this alliance was born three years ago and brings together several jihadist movements present in the region: Al-Mourabitoune, the “Katibas of Macina”, a movement led by the Peul Amadou Koufa, and Ansar Dine, led by the Tuareg Iyad Ag Ghaly.

A strong rivalry opposes the jihadists of the GSIM and those of the Islamic State present in West Africa.

The latter recently published a propaganda video of Daesh men slaughtering fighters presented as members of JNIM.

Behind which attacks are they behind?

In addition to the attacks claimed by each of its components before its official formation in March 2017, the shadow of the GSIM hangs over several large-scale attacks and bombings in West Africa.

In September 2017, she led the attack on Boulikessi, in central Mali, which claimed the lives of several dozen Malian soldiers.

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A few months earlier, the Group's jihadists attacked a camp in Kangaba, during which a Portuguese soldier died.

The GSIM is also associated with the two Ouagadougou attacks of August 2017 and March 2018. Simply suspected of being behind the first attack, which killed 19 people, the Group claimed responsibility for the double attack in the Burkinabè capital seven months later. and which left eight dead.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2020-10-10

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