France captures top Daesh leader in Mali

France on Wednesday announced the capture of Oumeya Ould Albakaye, a prominent leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS), the Daesh affiliate in the Sahel region. The operation has come in the midst of the French army’s withdrawal following ongoing friction between Bamako and Paris since Assimi Goita’s military junta consolidated power with the second coup d’état in nine months executed in May 2021. The arrest of the jihadist leader took place “in the early hours of 11 to 12 June”, although the French General Staff waited three days to make the capture public in order to…