French forces in northern Mali have killed a senior commander of the al-Mourabitoun Islamist group who was wanted by the US, a spokesman for France’s defence ministry said on Thursday, reports The Guardian.
The US has offered a $5m (£3.2m) reward for information leading to the arrest of Ahmed al-Tilemsi, who took part in the 2011 kidnapping of two French nationals in Niger and of three aid workers in Algeria later that year.
Tilemsi was a founding member of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujwa), which merged with fighters loyal to veteran Islamist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar to form al-Mourabitoun last year.
“Last night, we launched an operation in the Gao region in coordination with Malian forces,” Col Gilles Jarron told reporters in Paris on Thursday. He added that Tilemsi had been killed and a dozen other Islamists “neutralised”, but did not specify wether that meant killed or arrested.
Mujwa, Belmokhtar’s group and members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) formed a loose alliance of fighters that seized northern Mali’s desert regions in 2012.