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Ansar Dine
Ansar Dine (Arabic: أنصار الدين ʾAnṣār ad-Dīn, also transliterated Ançar Deen), meaning "helpers of the religion" (Islam) (Defenders of the Faith) and also known as Ansar al-Din (abbreviated as AAD), was a Salafi jihadist group led by Iyad Ag Ghaly. Ansar Dine sought to impose absolute sharia across Mali. The group took over the city of Timbuktu in 2012, which prompted the French-led intervention, Operation Serval.
The organization is not to be confused with the Sufi movement Ançar Dine, founded in Southern Mali in the 1990s by Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara, which is fundamentally opposed to militant Islamism. Ansar Dine was opposed to Sufi shrines, and it had destroyed a number of such shrines.
Ansar Dine was active from March 2012 until March 2017, when it merged with other militant Islamist groups to form Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin.
Ansar Dine had its main base among the Ifora tribe from the southern part of the Tuaregs' homeland.[citation needed] It had been linked with Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) because its leader Iyad Ag Ghaly is the cousin of AQIM commander Hamada Ag Hama. In April 2012, Salma Belaala, a professor at Warwick University who does research on jihadism in North Africa said that this association was false, claiming that Ansar Dine was opposed to Al Qaeda. Ag Ghaly was also previously associated with the 1990 Tuareg rebellion. The group's members were reported to come from Mali, Algeria, and Nigeria. Omar Ould Hamaha, who served as Ansar Dine's spokesman after April 2012, became the military leader of the AQIM-affiliated Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) in August 2012.
On 24 January 2013, a faction which called itself the Islamic Movement for the Azawad split from Ansar Dine. As of January 2013, this group was led by the prominent Tuareg leader Alghabass Ag Intalla.
In March 2013, it was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State, and similarly classed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council. and Iraq in 2019.
In Mopti, the Ansar Dine fighters obtained access to heavy construction equipment from fleeing construction workers and used it to build fighting positions. The fighting positions included an elaborate tunnel network and vehicular obstacles such as trenches.
Ansar Dine had reportedly put together at least one convoy of 100 vehicles carrying soldiers equipped with small arms. There had also been rumors that fighters may have been able to obtain weapons from Libya's weapons depots after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. The Ansar Dine arsenal also included anti aircraft weapons which can be mounted on pickup trucks.
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Ansar Dine
Ansar Dine (Arabic: أنصار الدين ʾAnṣār ad-Dīn, also transliterated Ançar Deen), meaning "helpers of the religion" (Islam) (Defenders of the Faith) and also known as Ansar al-Din (abbreviated as AAD), was a Salafi jihadist group led by Iyad Ag Ghaly. Ansar Dine sought to impose absolute sharia across Mali. The group took over the city of Timbuktu in 2012, which prompted the French-led intervention, Operation Serval.
The organization is not to be confused with the Sufi movement Ançar Dine, founded in Southern Mali in the 1990s by Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara, which is fundamentally opposed to militant Islamism. Ansar Dine was opposed to Sufi shrines, and it had destroyed a number of such shrines.
Ansar Dine was active from March 2012 until March 2017, when it merged with other militant Islamist groups to form Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin.
Ansar Dine had its main base among the Ifora tribe from the southern part of the Tuaregs' homeland.[citation needed] It had been linked with Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) because its leader Iyad Ag Ghaly is the cousin of AQIM commander Hamada Ag Hama. In April 2012, Salma Belaala, a professor at Warwick University who does research on jihadism in North Africa said that this association was false, claiming that Ansar Dine was opposed to Al Qaeda. Ag Ghaly was also previously associated with the 1990 Tuareg rebellion. The group's members were reported to come from Mali, Algeria, and Nigeria. Omar Ould Hamaha, who served as Ansar Dine's spokesman after April 2012, became the military leader of the AQIM-affiliated Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) in August 2012.
On 24 January 2013, a faction which called itself the Islamic Movement for the Azawad split from Ansar Dine. As of January 2013, this group was led by the prominent Tuareg leader Alghabass Ag Intalla.
In March 2013, it was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State, and similarly classed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council. and Iraq in 2019.
In Mopti, the Ansar Dine fighters obtained access to heavy construction equipment from fleeing construction workers and used it to build fighting positions. The fighting positions included an elaborate tunnel network and vehicular obstacles such as trenches.
Ansar Dine had reportedly put together at least one convoy of 100 vehicles carrying soldiers equipped with small arms. There had also been rumors that fighters may have been able to obtain weapons from Libya's weapons depots after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. The Ansar Dine arsenal also included anti aircraft weapons which can be mounted on pickup trucks.