4 March – 10 March: AQIM confirms death of prominent leader in Libya

Mar 11, 2020 | Other Jihadi Actors

On 4 March, Egypt executed the former Egyptian Special Force officer turned al-Qaeda affiliate Hisham Ashmawy. Ashmawy was captured by the Libyan National Army (LNA) in Derna and later extradited to Cairo in late 2018.

On 28 February, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) confirmed the death of prominent leader, Abdul Moneim Salem al-Hasnawi aka Abu Tahla al-Hasnawi, in Libya. He was reportedly killed by LNA forces in January 2020 in a house in Brak al-Shatti, in southern Libya. Abu Tahla was reported to have close links to al-Qaeda senior leadership in the region. The confirmation of his death coincided with AQIM announcing that two other notable leaders had also been declared dead: Algerian Yahya Abu Al-Hammam and Tunisian Abu Ayyad – both of whom were killed in Mali by French forces.