MUJAO split from AQIM in October 2011, following accusations that AQIM was too dominated by Arab commanders and criticisms of its methods of jihad. From the beginning, MUJAO had a clearly Sahelian ...

From The Associated Press: French intelligence services had detected preparations for an important offensive organized and coordinated by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM, and its ...

This local branch of the Islamic State group (ISIS) was at first self-proclaimed, the outgrowth of a schism within MUJAO. The group’s leader, the former MUJAO commander Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, ...