SUMMARY
Al-Murabitun (alternatively al-Mourabitoune) was an islamist rebel group that fought an intrastate conflict against the Malian government in the first years of the 2010s. The name was an homage to the 11th-Century Almoravid Empire that founded Marrakesh and at one point stretched from southern Spain south to Mauritania, and also included parts of what is now Algeria. The regional focus implied in al-Murabitun’s name was specified in the group’s founding statement, which talked about uniting Muslims and initiating jihad “from the Nile to the Atlantic”.
Al-Murabitun was created on 22 August 2013, when the two islamist groups MUJAO and Signed-in-Blood Battalion merged. They, in turn, had emerged as splinters from AQIM in 2011 and 2012 respectively, and they shared the regional focus that also the new organization embraced; MUJAO aimed to initiate jihad in West Africa, whereas Signed-in-Blood Battalion focused on the entire Sahara. MUJAO and Signed-in-Blood Battalion had cooperated closely also prior to the merger, carrying out joint attacks not only in Mali, but also across the border in Niger.
The group’s regional outlook did not mean that it lacked local roots. MUJAO, for its part, had been created in part as a reaction to the Algerian dominated leadership of AQIM, and the splinter had prided itself with being multi-ethnic, with no ethnic group exerting superiority over another. It had made a determined effort to recruit from among the local population in its main area of operation, in Gao. In the context of the ongoing separatist conflict between the Touareg rebel group CMA (originally MNLA) and the Malian government, the group had been able to play on anti-Tuareg feelings and rally support and fighters from especially the Songhai ethnic group. Subsequently, one of al-Murabitun’s constituent parts was both a local group and a transnational, ‘foreign’ one, comprising jihadists from Sub-Saharan Africa, Mauretania, Chad, Niger and other countries. The other constituent faction, Signed-in-Blood Battalion, was a more clear-cut international organization, with fighters originating from Sudan, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Western Sahara. However, through its leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who had spent many years in northern Mali and was married to four local Berber and Tuareg women from prominent families, the group’s ties to the local population were cemented.
When it comes to the size of the group, reports diverge. In May 2014, French intelligence claimed that al-Murabitun had suffered huge losses and numbered less than 100. However, in late 2015, Algerian security sources estimated that the group had a least 600 fighters. These were divided into many brigades, with the best known being the so-called Bin-Laden Brigade.
Al-Murabitun was led by an Emir and a Shura Council. When the group was first formed, the leaders of MUJAO and Signed-in-Blood Battalion relinquished the leadership of the group to Abu Bakr al Muhajir (al Masri), an Egyptian that had previously fought alongside the Taleban in the conflict in Afghanistan. Al Masri was killed by French troops – supporting the Malian government in the conflict – in April 2014. After his death, the Shura Council did not name a new Emir until July the following year, when it announced that it had elected former Signed-in-Blood Battalion leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar new head of the group.
Al-Murabitun’s main area of operation was in northern Mali. In 2014, it was reported that its sphere of influence spanned from the Timetrine area in Kidal region, to the Tilemsi valley in Gao region’s Gao cercle, and Ansongo cercle in the same region. The following year, the Menaka area, further east, was pin-pointed as an al-Murabitun area. The group was also said to have rear bases in neighboring Niger and possibly also in Libya. Al-Murabitun also launched attacks on targets far away from its base areas. In 2015, it carried out attacks on both a night club and the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako. Despite the fact that the group’s two constituent parts had both been created by splitting off from AQIM, al-Murabitun and the latter on occasion cooperated militarily. For instance, the above mentioned attack on the Radisson Blu hotel was a joint venture between AQIM and al-Murabitun. Furthermore, the group also had ties to fellow islamist FLM, who was mainly active in the central parts of Mali. Together, they carried out an attack on the Byblos hotel in the town of Sevare, which killed some 10 civilians.
In 2014, the jihadist landscape of northern Mali, and the Sahel in general, which was scattered to begin with, suffered a new divide. In late June of that year, the Islamic State (IS) – an Iraqi Salafi jihadist militant group that had previously been loyal to al-Qaida – announced the establishment of a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq. Furthermore, it demanded the allegiance of all devout Muslims worldwide, and declared that it would continue to seize land to expand its territory across the globe. Subsequently, the group made a big push to win the allegiance of various al Qaeda-affiliated organizations around the globe, causing a rift to open up between those who shifted their allegiances from al-Qaida to IS and those who remained loyal. For al-Murabitun, this caused a major rift. In May the following year, former MUJAO leader, and al-Murabitun senior spokesperson, Adnan Abu Waleed al-Sarhawi pledged allegiance to IS, stating that the pledged was on behalf of al-Murabitun. However, it soon became clear that Sahrawi's pledge was on behalf of himself and most of what had previously been MUJAO, not Mokhtar Belmokhtar and his former Signed-in-Blood Battalion faction, which remained a staunch ally of al-Qaida. Sarhawi and his followers subsequently left al-Murabitun, naming their new group the Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS). A year and a half later, IS central accepted the pledge and ISGS became part of the former. As for al-Murabitun, the group and its new leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar grew closer to AQIM yet again, and on 4 December 2015 a statement was released announcing that al-Murabitun had re-joined the mother organization.
