The group conducted and continues to conduct attacks against French, UN, and Malian forces before and since the creation of JNIM. While Ansar al-Din remains orientated around Kidal with a composition ...

The vehicles and weapons used by Malian militants who attacked government forces and Russian instructors ... They had reconnaissance and special units <…>, necessary vehicles and weapons.

It was initially composed of a mixture of Tuareg returnees from the 2011 rebellion against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi (such as the group’s military commander Mohamed Ag Najim) and defectors from ...