Nov 23, 2020Al-Qaeda’s central and western North Africa branch has named Algerian Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi as its leader after French military forces killed Abdelmalek Droukdel in June. He has been a vocal proponent of jihad against the French military’s ongoing counterterrorism mission in the Maghreb. The group also confirmed that Beatrice Stoeckli, a Swiss missionary who was kidnapped in Mali in 2016, had died. News of Stoeckli’s death first came from a French aid worker who was released in October in a prisoner swap with the Malian government. At the time, the Swiss government blamed the al-Qaeda’s franchise in Mali, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, for her death.

Source: The North Africa Journal November 23, 2020 17:37 UTC