[NEWS.YAHOO] The leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was killed this week by French forces in Mali.
Although Abdelmalik Droukdel
 ... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. ...
had a low public profile, he was one of the most powerful Islamist warlords in the region and his death is likely to have an impact on jihadist groups there.
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Here is a round-up of views on Thursday's incident and how it might have an impact on the volatile region.
- HOW WAS HE KILLED? -
Droukdel and other AQIM leaders met in a river valley in northern Mali late on June 3, according to a local source.
The remote desert valley, some 20 kilometres from the Algerian border, is often used as a watering hole for animals.
French forces moved quickly, first with an air strike that hit a vehicle, then with half a dozen helicopters and ground troops.
Droukdel was killed in the fighting along with AQIM's propagandist Toufik Chaib.
One jihadist surrendered and was taken into custody, said French Colonel Frederic Barbry.
The lawless area where the raid took place is crossroads for truckers, who are sometimes forced to wait for weeks before being allowed to cross the border.
The area is also a "hotspot for migrant trafficking", a UN expert in Mali told AFP.
- HOW WILL HIS DEATH AFFECT JIHADIST GROUPS? -
The semi-desert Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
has been plagued by jihadists since faceless myrmidons seized control of Mali's north in 2012.
The conflict has since spread to the centre of the country, and to neighbouring Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
and Niger. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed to date.
The killing might disrupt the jihadists but it will not resolve the conflict, according to Denis Tull, a West Africa expert with the French government's Institute for Strategic Research.
"It's all very well to neutralise certain leaders," he said, "but we've seen in other fields that beheading leaders is never enough."
Droukdel was not the region's only powerful jihadist.
The leaders of a jihadist alliance linked to al-Qaeda, the Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM), are still on the lam.
Among them are Mali's two most notorious jihadists -- in the north, veteran Tuareg turban Iyad Ag Ghaly, in central areas, radical Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...
preacher Amadou Koufa
 ...Imperator of the Macina Liberation Front, one of the local groups within Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa. MLF draws from the cattle-herding Fulani tribe extant in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which appeared in 2015 for the purpose of jihading against the farming tribes of Dogon and Bambara. Amadou was reported killed in a French raid, but he arose from the dead sometime around January 2019, to continue jihading as usual...
GSIM has grabbed credit for numerous attacks on Malian soldiers since 2017.
The so-called Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group also has a franchise in the region set up in 2015 by Abou Walid al-Sahraoui, a former AQIM member.
The groups led by Koufa and al-Sahraoui have been highly active recently, according to Ibrahim Maiga of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
"The bad boy position will be maintained by these groups, even if Droukdel's death shows them that no one is safe," he said.
- COULD THE REGION BECOME MORE STABLE? -
Disposing of Droukdel will not solve the region's wider problems, said a French counterterrorism expert who requested anonymity.
A variety of difficulties contribute to the region's instability and insecurity, experts argue.
The violence is the main problem -- some 30 villagers were killed in central Mali on Friday alone.
But national governments are also plagued by political problems. Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters erupted into the streets in Mali's capital Bamako on Friday.
Complaints of government mismanagement and mistreatment of civilians by national armies are also common in region.
"All this risks perhaps overshadowing this death," said the ISS's Ibrahim Maiga. 
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