| Tchibarakaten ambush | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Jihadist insurgency in Niger | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 France |  al-Mourabitoun | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown | 16 men 6 pickups | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| None | 13 killed 2 prisoners | ||||||
Between October 9 and 10, 2014, jihadists from al-Mourabitoun were ambushed by French forces near Tchibarakaten, Niger while transporting supplies from Libya to Mali.
French forces in Operation Barkhane had expanded to Niger to combat jihadist groups transporting supplies and information in and out of Mali by 2014. In September 2014, French and Nigerien forces conducted an operation in Niger and one in northern Mali that led to the arrest of a close confidant of AQIM emir Mokhtar Belmokhtar. [1]
In October 2014, a convoy from al-Mourabitoun left Libya and headed towards Mali through Niger. [2] The jihadists traveled on six vehicles loaded with weapons. [1] [2] The convoy had already been spotted by French and Nigerien forces supported by American intelligence. [3] On the evening of October 9, 2014, French forces attacked the convoy as it reached the gold mining region outside of Tchibarakaten in rural Azawagh, Niger. [4] A French plane bombed the head of the column, destroying two vehicles. [2] The remaining four vehicles tried to flee, but French special forces in helicopters shot at the fleeing jihadists. [2] The rest of the convoy was destroyed. [5]
The French Ministry of Defense estimated initially that all fifteen militants were killed or injured, but later revised this to thirteen killed and two jihadists taken prisoner. [2] Only one jihadist was able to escape. [2] Abou Aasam El Mouhajir, the spokesman for al-Mourabitoun, was one of the jihadists taken prisoner. [4] The French Ministry of Defense did not state any losses on their side. [2] [6] Three tons of weapons were destroyed in the ambush, including anti-tank rockets and SA-7 missiles. The ambush was the largest seizure of weapons from jihadists during the Mali War since January 2013. [2]
The ambush of Tinsalane occurred on February 11, 2012, when armed groups of Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) fought against a convoy of the Malian army who came to reinforce the troops besieged in Tessalit.
The 2017 Ayorou attack occurred on 21 October 2017 when armed militants from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara attacked a Nigerien military outpost in the village of Ayorou in southwestern Niger, killing 13 gendarmes. Occurring just weeks after a similar attack in the area killed four American and four Nigerien troops, the attack was carried out by ISGS gunmen who crossed the porous border from Mali.
Ahmed al-Tilemsi, nom de guerre of Abderrahmane Ould El Amar was a Malian jihadist leader and drug trafficker who served as a founding member and senior figure of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and a senior figure and alleged emir of al-Mourabitoun.
Ba Ag Moussa was a Malian militant and jihadist.
An Islamist insurgency has been ongoing in the Sahel region of West Africa since the 2011 Arab Spring. In particular, the intensive conflict in the three countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has been referred to as the Sahel War.
On July 31, 2018, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin ambushed a convoy of Malian soldiers transporting electoral votes near Dogofry, Mali.
On July 16, 2015, the Malian army raided a jihadist base in the Sama Forest, in southern Mali's Sikasso Region. The raid is one of the few confrontations between jihadists and the Malian army in southern Mali, and marked the end of the Khalid ibn Walid katiba and jihadist expansion in southern Mali.
Between December 10 and 11, 2014, French forces ambushed militants from al-Mourabitoun near Tabankort, Gao Region, Mali. The ambush led to the death of Ahmed al-Tilemsi, the founder of MOJWA and a key figure in al-Mourabitoun.
Between October 26 and November 8, 2014, French forces of Operation Barkhane launched an offensive against jihadists from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar Dine in the area of Ametettai, rural Kidal Region. It was dubbed Operation Tudelle by French authorities.
On October 3, 2014, nine Nigerien peacekeepers were killed in an ambush by al-Mourabitoun in Indelimane, Mali.
Hamada Ag Hama, also known as Abdelkrim Taleb or Abdelkrim al-Targui was a Malian jihadist and emir of Katiba Al Ansar, a brigade in Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
On November 8, 2013, clashes broke out between Malian forces and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in Amazragane, Ménaka Region, Mali.
On July 5, 2011, clashes broke out between Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Mauritanian forces in Bassikounou, Mauritania.
The Battle of Areich Hind, also known as the Battle of Raz el-Ma, took place between September 17 and 19, 2010, during the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel. Mauritanian forces launched an offensive against a group of AQIM jihadists in Malian territory on September 17.
The Kidal offensive was an offensive by the Malian government and Wagner Group mercenaries against the rebel coalition Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security, and Development (CSP-PSD) with the aim of capturing the rebel-held region of Kidal. The offensive was part of a renewed conflict between the Malian junta that took power in 2021 and former Tuareg rebel groups that had signed the Algiers Agreement in 2015, creating a ceasefire and de facto rebel control over the region. The offensive was also an attempt by Malian forces to seize control over MINUSMA camps in Kidal Region after the Malian junta had ordered the mission to leave the country by the end of 2023.
The Tazalit attack, also known as the Tazalit massacre, occurred on October 6, 2016, when unknown jihadists attacked Nigerien forces at the Tazalit refugee camp in Niger, killing dozens of Nigerien soldiers. The attack was the deadliest attack on Nigerien forces so far during the jihadist insurgency in Niger.
On February 22, 2017, jihadists from Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) attacked Nigerien forces in Tilwa, Ouallam Department, Niger.
On July 5, 2017, jihadists from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) attacked Nigerien forces near Midal, Niger. The attack was the first claimed by JNIM in Niger.
On May 14, 2019, jihadists from Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) attacked Nigerien forces in Baley Beri, Niger, killing twenty-seven Nigerien soldiers.
Djamel Okacha, nom de guerre Yahia Abou al-Hamman, was an Algerian jihadist who fought in the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and later Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). Okacha served as the commanders of Katiba al-Furqan and Katiba al-Mulathamoun within AQIM, and was appointed as the co-governor of Tombouctou Region during Ansar Dine's capture of the region during the 2012 Tuareg rebellion. Okacha was then appointed as the second-in-command of AQIM between 2012 and 2017, where he co-founded JNIM alongside Iyad Ag Ghaly and Amadou Kouffa. Okacha served as the second-in-command of JNIM until his death in 2019.