Illustrative image. (Telegram)
Russia’s Africa Corps revealed on June 3 that it had targeted the second-in-command of al-Qaeda’s Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).
Sedane Ag Hita was present at a JNIM camp located close to the town of Diabaly in the Ségou region of southcentral Mali when it was targeted by a series of air and rocket strikes on May 27, according to a statement by the corps posted to the X social network.
The corps shared footage of the strikes, noting that since then there has been no evidence confirming that the senior JNIM commander survived.
The strikes came more than a month after JNIM launched a large-scale offensive across Mali in cooperation with the separatist Tuareg Azawad Liberation Front (FLA). Since then, the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) has been working to push back the militants, with direct support from Russia’s Africa Corps.
Ag Hita, also known as Abou Abdelhakim al-Kidali, served as a sergeant in the FAMa before deserting to join rebels and later Al-Qaeda-linked groups. He has been the second-in-command of JNIM since 2019, commanding operations in northern Mali as the right-hand man of the group’s overall leader Iyad Ag Ghaly.
If confirmed, the killing of Ag Hita would be a major blow to JNIM, which is already struggling to hold onto its gains from the last offensive, mainly around the capital, Bamako.
The offensive played more in favor of the FLA, which managed to capture vast parts of the Kidal region in northeastern Mali.
JNIM seeks to replace established state authority with a conservative interpretation of Islamic law, while the FLA was founded by several Tuareg movements based on its demands for the independence or autonomy of Azawad. Had the offensive succeeded, a civil war between the two would have broken out soon after.
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