Al-Mourabitoun () was an African militant jihadist organisation formed by a merger between Ahmed Ould Amer, a.k.a. Ahmed al-Tilemsi's Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Mokhtar Belmokhtar's Al-Mulathameen. On 4 December 2015, it joined Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The group seeks to implement Sharia law in Mali, Algeria, southwestern Libya, and Niger. On 2 March 2017, al-Mourabitoun's cells in Mali, along with those of Ansar Dine, Macina Liberation Front and the Saharan branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb merged into Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin, the official branch of Al-Qaeda in Mali, after its leaders swore allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri. Origins and membership Al-Mourabitoun was composed mostly of Tuaregs and Arabs from the northern Mali regions of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao, but also included Algerians, Tunisians and other nationalities. Its area of operations was in north Mali, near towns such as Tessalit and Ansongo. The group's establishment was announced by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, though the group's leader was said to be a non-Algerian veteran of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and the 2002 battles against American forces in the same country, later identified by French Intelligence as an Egyptian known as Abubakr al-Nasri (al-Masri). Abubakr was reportedly killed by French Special Forces in North Eastern Mali between 10 and 17 April 2014, as was senior commander Omar Ould Hamaha weeks earlier. The group is named after the Almoravids, a North-West African Islamic dynasty of the 11th and 12th centuries, spanning from Senegal to the Iberian peninsula. It was designated a terrorist organization by the UN, Australia, Canada, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. History On 14 May 2015, Adnan Abu Walid Sahraoui released an audio message pledging the group's allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Belmokhtar issued a statement several days later rejecting this pledge and stating that it had not been approved beforehand, seeming to indicate a split in the group. On 3 December 2015, AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel announced in an audio statement that Al-Mourabitoun had joined his organisation. ISIL formally accepted Sahraoui's pledge of allegiance in a statement and video released in October 2016. The reason for the lengthy delay in acknowledgement was not clear. On 2 March 2017, al-Mourabitoun's cells in Mali, along with those of Ansar Dine, Macina Liberation Front and the Saharan branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic