JNIM Deputy Leader Ag Albaka Killed in Northern Mali: Fluke or Sign of Counter-Terrorism Progress?
JNIM Deputy Leader Ag Albaka Killed in Northern Mali: Fluke or Sign of Counter-Terrorism Progress?
On April 5, Abdallaye ag Albaka was reportedly killed during an attack by the Group for Support of Muslims and Islam (JNIM) in the northern Malian town of Aguelhok (leparisien.fr, April 5). The attack targeted a United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) base and was a failure for JNIM. It led not only to the death of Ag Albaka, but also that of 40 JNIM fighters. Other JNIM members were arrested during the sweep-up operations that took place in the aftermath of the assault (maliactu.net, April 11).
According to MINUSMA, 1,400 Chadian troops are among the 15,000 MINUSMA soldiers in northern Mali, including in Kidal, Tessalit and Aguelhok. The Chadians formed the vast majority of the troops that thwarted Ag Albaka and his fighters in Aguelhok (Twitter.com/PDWilliamsGWU, April 21). Four Chadian troops, however, were killed in the attack and subsequently honored in Chad’s capital, N’djamena (alwihdainfo.com, April 17). This attack occurred before the current unrest in Chad began, which resulted from President Idriss Deby’s death in battle against Chadian rebels on April 19. The Chadian soldiers’ performance was considered a major accomplishment for the country’s deployment in Mali (alwihdainfo.com, April 5).
Aguelhok was also the town where, in 2012, Tuareg mercenaries previously employed by the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya launched a major attack, killing dozens of Malian soldiers (aljazeera.com, April 24, 2013). Just before the beginning of hostilities, Ag Albaka had been the mayor of Tessalit, not far from Aguelhok (tvmonde.com, April 3). Like the current JNIM Emir Iyad ag Ghaly, Ag Albaka made the decision to join the Tuareg fighters and revolt against the Malian state in 2012. This was, in fact, somewhat predictable. In the previous Tuareg rebellion, which lasted from 2007 to 2009, Ag Albaka’s deputies had rebelled against the Malian state and were implicated in an attack on Malian soldiers even while Ag Albaka was the mayor of Tessalit (malijet.com, May 5, 2008).
Ag Albaka gained a reputation for being a close follower of Ag Ghaly (Agence France-Presse, April 5). Thus, when Ag Ghaly agreed to a peace deal with the Malian state that was implemented in 2009, Ag Albaka joined him. Little is known about Ag Albaka’s religious radicalization, but during the 2000s Ag Ghaly gradually adopted a Salafist worldview under the influence of Tablighi Jamaat, a transnational Islamist organization. Ag Ghaly also briefly worked as a Malian diplomat in Jedda, Saudi Arabia in 2007. The position was given to him as a form of compensation for his withdrawal from the Tuareg rebellion that year (wikileaks.org, November 29, 2007).
Thus, when the 2012 Tuareg rebellion was launched, Ag Ghaly and his number two, Ag Albaka, both first joined the rebels, which included a tacit alliance between the Movement for Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar al-Din (Supporters of the Religion). The latter, Ansar al-Din, was led by Ag Ghaly, with Ag Albaka as his sidekick, and adopted a jihadist vision even though it maintained a Tuareg ethno-national base (France24.com, June 12, 2012). Together with AQIM and MUJWA, Ansar al-Din, which was based in Kidal, captured northern Mali, ousted the Malian government forces, and began imposing Sharia law from April 2012 onward.
After Paris launched Operation Serval in December 2012, France and allied national armies, including units from Mali and Chad, expelled MUJWA, Ansar al-Din and AQIM from northern Mali. However, in 2017, JNIM was formed, which comprised AQIM’s Sahel-based brigade, Ansar al-Din and Ansar al-Din’s Fulani sub-unit, Katiba Macina. According to a United Nations security official, Ag Albaka became the number three ranking official in JNIM’s hierarchy after its emir, Ag Ghaly, and his deputy and Katiba Macina’s leader, Hamadou Kufa (tvmonde.com, April 5).
Since 2017, JNIM has been conducting a highly successful insurgency and has become more active than AQIM itself in the Sahel (Terrorism Monitor, April 21, 2017). The group has also conducted attacks on the MINUSMA base in Aguelhok before, including killing 10 peacekeepers in 2019 (news.un.org, January 20, 2019). The failed attacked that led to Ag Albaka’s death, therefore, appears to be an aberration and not necessarily indicative of a broader MINUSMA crackdown against JNIM.
Furthermore, it remains to be seen how well Chadian troops can continue to withstand JNIM attacks in Aguelhok, considering the domestic turmoil in their home country since Idriss Deby’s death and the potential for Chadian troops to return home to take part in a civil war (alwihdainfo.com, April 5). Nevertheless, for the time being, the image of the bearded Ag Albaka’s corpse in Aguelhok, released online by journalist Wassim Nasr, remains evidence that, at least on April 2, a major JNIM attack on Chadian-led MINUSMA forces failed (Twitter.com/SimNasr, April 6). The deaths of 40 JNIM fighters, including Ag Albaka, may, in the short-term, limit JNIM’s mobility in Aguelhok and reduce Ag Ghaly’s influence with his sidekick now eliminated. However, it seems unlikely that the Aguelhok battle alone will become the turning point that MINUSMA needs.
