Abu Hassan al-Ansari

al-Ansari was born a Tilemsi Arab from the Tilemsi region of Gao.^[1] He is the cousin of Ahmed al-Tilemsi, the founder of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) who was killed in 2014.^[1]

al-Ansari is suspected of planning and perpetrating the 2016 Ouagadougou attacks that killed 30 people, and the Grand-Bassam shootings later that year in Ivory Coast.^[1] In 2016, he was considered the right-hand man of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).^[2] al-Ansari also led Al-Mourabitoun in Mali in 2015.^[1]

He appeared in the 2017 video that announced the creation of Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin as a merger of five different jihadist groups led by Iyad Ag Ghaly.^[2] al-Ansari was killed in the 2018 Inaghalawass skirmish. JNIM retaliated by launching the 2018 Ouagadougou attacks.^[3][4]