France’s military forces have killed al-Qaeda chief Abdelmalek Droukdel after seven year hunt

FRENCH military claim to have finally captured and killed Abdelmalek Droukdel, al-Qaeda’s North Africa chief, in Mali.

France’s Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly posted on Twitter, “On June 3, French army forces, with the support of their local partners, killed the emir of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, and several of his closest collaborators, during an operation in northern Mali.”

French military forces had been hunting Droukdel for more than seven years and his death comes six months after President Macron and the heads of the G5 Sahel group joined their military forces to fight terrorist groups said to be associated with al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) group.

In a video released in March by SITE, the al-Qaeda chief implored governments of the Sahel region to eliminate any French military presence, calling them “armies of occupation”.

Algerian native, Droukdel had been reported as being holed up in the mountains of northern Algeria for some time before his capture in Mali.