Iyad Ag Ghaly

Iyad Ag Ghaly
Native name
إياد أغ غالي
Nickname(s)The Strategist[1]
Born1954 (age 69–70)[2]
Abeïbara, Kidal Region, French Sudan[3]
AllegianceMPLA
Al-Qaeda
Service / branchJama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin
Battles / warsTuareg rebellion (1990–1995)

Insurgency in the Maghreb

Iyad Ag Ghaly (Arabic: إياد أغ غالي, sometimes romanised as Ag Ghali; born 1954), also known as Abū al-Faḍl (Arabic: أبو الفضل),[4] is a Tuareg Islamist militant from Mali's Kidal Region.[5][6] He has been active in Tuareg rebellions against the Malian government since the 1980s – particularly in the early 1990s. In 1988, he founded the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad.[7] In the latest episode of the Tuareg upheavals in 2012, he featured as the founder and leader of the Islamist militant group Ansar Dine.[8]

Born in 1954 into a noble family of the Ifogha tribal group (an influential Tuareg clan in the Kidal region[6]), his gift for strategic thinking allegedly earned him the nickname, the Strategist.[1][2] Sometime between 2005 and 2008, he was appointed as one of Mali's diplomats to Saudi Arabia.[9]

  1. ^ a b Beaumont, Peter (27 October 2012), "The man who could determine whether the west is drawn into Mali's war", The Guardian, archived from the original on 8 March 2016, retrieved 12 January 2012
  2. ^ a b Lecocq, Baz (2004), "Unemployed Intellectuals in the Sahara: Teshumara Nationalist Movement and the Revolutions in Tuareg Society", Popular Intellectuals and Social Movements: Framing Protest in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Cambridge University Press, p. 90, ISBN 9780521613484
  3. ^ "Mali: Report Profiles 'Masters of the North". 20 April 2012. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  4. ^ "إياد غالي: المجاهدون وأنصار الدين تعاهدوا على نصرة الشريعة وقتال الرافضين لها" [Iyad ag Ghaly: the Mujahideen and Ansar ad-Dîn committing themselves to uphold sharia and to fight those who reject it], وكالة نواكشوط للأنباء (News Agency Nouagchott), 4 April 2012, archived from the original on 25 June 2012, retrieved 30 December 2012, وقال إياد غالي المكنى أبو الفضل (and Iyad Ag Ghaly, bearing the kunya Abū al-Faḍl, said...)
  5. ^ "Rebels take Timbuktu as Mali junta 'restores' constitution", Times of India, 2 April 2012, archived from the original on 29 July 2012, retrieved 4 April 2012
  6. ^ a b Steve Metcalf (17 July 2012). "Iyad Ag Ghaly - Mali's Islamist leader". BBC News. Archived from the original on 31 July 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
  7. ^ North Africa: Holy Wars and Hostages - Aqim in the Maghreb, All Africa, 29 March 2012, archived from the original on 11 November 2013, retrieved 12 January 2013
  8. ^ Soumaila Diarra (13 May 2014). "Terrorism in West Africa: Violence Erupts as Wanted Jihadist Leader Returns". AFK Insider. Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  9. ^ Your daily Muslim:Iyad Ag Ghaly, Your Daily Muslim, 11 March 2013, archived from the original on 24 August 2013, retrieved 28 April 2013