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Africa North
Islamist pleads guilty to Mali hotel, restaurant attacks
2020-10-31
[Jpost] A Mauritanian suspected jihadist pleaded guilty on Wednesday to shooting dead five people in an attack in the Malian capital Bamako in 2015 and planning two other attacks in the country that year that targeted Westerners and killed 37 more people.

In a court appearance in Bamako on Wednesday, Fawaz Ould Ahmed described in detail how he carried out the attack on La Terrace restaurant in March 2015.

He said he was also involved in planning a raid that killed 17 at Hotel Byblos in the town of Sevare in August and another that killed 20 people at Bamako's Radisson Blu hotel that November.

The attacks marked a brazen new phase in jihadist operations across West Africa, in which top hotels and tourist destinations frequented by Western tourists, aid workers and diplomats were no longer considered safe.

"I regret nothing," Ahmed told the court, adding that he had been seeking Dire Revenge for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad printed in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo
...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
In January 2015, two months before Ahmed's first attack, Islamist Death Eaters in Gay Paree had stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo and rubbed out 12 people because of the cartoons.

Ahmed described taking a taxi to La Terrasse restaurant and carrying out the shooting.

"On arrival I went to the toilets, put on a balaclava, took out my Kalashnikov and shot those unbelievers," he said.

At the time, Death Eater groups Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Mourabitoun grabbed credit for the attacks in Mali as well as for attacks on a restaurant in neighboring 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...
's capital Ouagadougou and a beach resort town in Ivory Coast.
That’s ok — the Malian al-Mourabitoune is an Al Qaeda in North Africa affiliate.
Ahmed was captured in Bamako in 2016 as he was preparing to carry out another attack armed with grenades and a suitcase filled with weapons on behalf of al Mourabitoun, according to local authorities.

If convicted of the charges including murder and complicity in murder, Ould Ahmed and the one other suspect could face the death penalty
Related:
Hotel Byblos: 2015-08-09 Nine Killed, Four Rescued From Hotel in Mali, Says Official
Hotel Byblos: 2015-08-08 Hotel standoff in Mali, U.N. employee among 8 dead
Related:
Bamako: 2020-10-10 French aid worker freed by captors returns home from Mali
Bamako: 2020-10-09 Mali: Four hostages released by extremist fighters
Bamako: 2020-09-07 Former Mali President Keita leaves country amid transition talks
Related:
Radisson Blu hotel: 2017-10-03 Fighting in Tripoli leaves 3 dead
Radisson Blu hotel: 2017-06-19 Mali attack: Two dead after gunmen storm tourist resort
Radisson Blu hotel: 2017-01-21 Al-Qaeda Affiliate Claims Mali Car Bomb
Related:
Mourabitoun: 2020-08-20 Israeli police arrest Al-Aqsa guard, maintenance employee - report
Mourabitoun: 2020-07-26 Joint List’s Abbas warns about Arab alliance’s future after some MKs vote to bar conversion therapy
Mourabitoun: 2020-03-05 Egyptian authorities carry out the death sentence in the former Egyptian army officer Hisham Ashmawi
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