The group's establishment was announced by
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, though the group's leader was said to be a non-Algerian veteran of the
anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and the
2002 battles against American forces in the same country,[11] later identified by French Intelligence as an Egyptian known as Abubakr al-Nasri (al-Masri). Abubakr was reportedly killed by
French Special Forces in Northeastern Mali between 10 and 17 April 2014, as was senior commander
Omar Ould Hamaha weeks earlier.[1]
The group is named after the
Almoravids, a North-West African Islamic dynasty of the 11th and 12th centuries, spanning from Senegal to the Iberian Peninsula.[11]
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On 14 May 2015, Adnan Abu Walid Sahraoui released an audio message pledging the group's allegiance to the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[17] Belmokhtar issued a statement several days later rejecting this pledge and stating that it had not been approved beforehand, seeming to indicate a split in the group.[18][19] On 3 December 2015, AQIM leader
Abdelmalek Droukdel announced in an audio statement that Al-Mourabitoun had joined his organization.[20] ISIL formally accepted Sahraoui's pledge of allegiance in a statement and video released in October 2016. The reason for the lengthy delay in acknowledgement was not clear.[21]
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7 March 2015: A masked gunman
killed 5 and injured 9 others at a restaurant popular with foreigners in
Mali's capital
Bamako. Among the victims were three locals, a Frenchman, and a Belgian security officer with the
European Union representative in the city.
10 August 2015: An IED killed three Malian soldiers and injured four others near
Sévaré.[22]
11 August 2015: A coordinated assault against the Byblos hotel in Sévaré lead to a 24-hour-long stand-off in which 13 people were killed, including five UN workers, four soldiers, and four attackers. The group later claimed responsibility for this attack and the bombing on the day before.[23]
20 November 2015: A group of militants
took more than 170 people hostages at the
Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, sparking a siege that left 22 people dead, including 2 gunmen. At least 7 others were injured in the attack, with 2 of them being members of the Malian Special Forces.[24]
15 January 2016: A group of militants staged
a coordinated assault on two hotels and adjacent businesses in the center of
Burkina Faso's capital
Ouagadougou, burning vehicles and taking more than 200 hostages. At least 30 people were killed, and 56 others injured in the siege that followed.[25]
February 2016: The group released an audio message, in which it admitted it had kidnapped an Australian couple during the
Ouagadougou attacks, and that it planned to release one of the captives as it does "not target women in times of war."[26] The wife of the doctor that was kidnapped during the
Ouagadougou attacks was subsequently released on February 7.[27] The doctor was released in May 2023.[28]
13 March 2016: Three gunmen
assaulted a beach resort in
Grand-Bassam,
Ivory Coast, using assault rifles and hand grenades. At least 21 people were killed in the attack, including all of the attackers, three members of the country's special forces, as well as 15 civilians (including at least 5 Europeans).[29][30][31]
18 January 2017: A suicide bomber drove a vehicle filled with explosives into a military camp near Gao, Mali,
killing 77 people and injuring at least 115 others. At the time it was the deadliest terrorist incident in the country's history.