Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Attack on French Soldiers in Sahel

Al-Qaeda affiliated group "Support of Islam and Muslims" claimed Today responsibility for the attack that killed three French soldiers in Mali.

The jihadist alliance in the Sahel region referred to the continued French military presence in the region, the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and President Emmanuel Macron's defense of the publication of the cartoons in the name of freedom of expression, as well as the government's policy towards Muslims in France.

The group wrote in a statement issued on Friday that "With the aim of ending the occupation of the Sahel region, your jihadist brothers carried out a qualitative operation against a convoy of the French occupation forces on the road between Gossi and Humpuri."

The statement added, "This blessed operation resulted in the death of three elite members of the occupation army."

Paris announced the killing of three French soldiers on Monday in Mali, after an explosive device exploded with their vehicle in the Humpuri region in the north of the country.

This brings the number of French soldiers killed in Mali to 47 since Paris intervened militarily for the first time in January 2013 to help expelling local groups and jihadists who had occupied parts of the West African Sahel country.

The French force of Barkhane, consists of 5,100 soldiers, deployed in the Sahel region, where it faces jihadist groups alongside soldiers from Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which together form the Group of Five Sahel countries.