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TerrorismMali

US indicts Mauritania national over terror attacks in Mali

December 11, 2022

Fawaz Ould Ahmed is accused of being involved in multiple deadly attacks in Mali in 2015. He was already handed the death penalty by a Malian court in 2020.

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Bar La Terrasse in Bamako, Mali
La Terrasse bar in Bamako where five people were killed in March 2015Image: Alex Duval Smith/dpa/picture alliance

A Mauritanian man who received a death penalty in Mali for involvement in attacks that killed dozens including an American in 2015, was extradited to the United States to face an indictment related to the same crime, the US Justice Department said on Saturday.

Fawaz Ould Ahmed, a Mauritanian Islamist, also known as "Ibrahim 10," is accused of carrying out the March 2015 attack on the La Terrasse bar and restaurant in Bamamko that left five people dead.

He is also accused of masterminding attacks on the Hotel Byblos in Sevare in August 2015 and the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako in November 2015 that left 13 and 20 people dead respectively.

Ahmed faces charges including the murder of US citizen Anita Ashok Datar and conspiracy to provide support to US-designated terrorist organizations al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun, according to the Justice Department.

Revenge for cartoons

The now 44-year-old and two other jihadis involved in the attacks were sentenced to death by a Malian court in 2020.     

During the trial, Ould Ahmed said he had carried out the attack on La Terrasse in revenge for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed by France's Charlie Hebdo magazine.

Born in Nouakchott in the late 1970s, Ould Ahmed was radicalized after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

dh/wd (AP, AFP, Reuters)