Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud (20 April 1970-3 June 2020), also known as Abdelmalek Droukdel, was the leader of the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from 2007 to 2020, preceding Abu Ubaidah Yusef al-Annabi.
Biography[]
Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud was born on 20 April 1970 in Meftah, Algeria, and gained a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Blida. In 1996, he joined the insurgency in Algeria and briefly fought in the Afghan Civil War before returning to Algeria to fight against the government. In 2004 he succeeded Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader Nabil Sahraoui as the new leader of the group and joined forces with al-Qaeda in 2006. He eventually distanced himself from al-Qaeda by opposing the destruction of shrines in Mali and getting furious at the too-quick implementation of Islamic law, and he ousted Mokhtar Belmokhtar from the group because of "fractious behavior". On 3 June 2020, he was killed by the French Army in the Northern Mali.
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