Iyad Ag Ghali: Iyad Ag Ghali: How Pakistan’s campaigners converted this rotation into a dreaded terrorist

Once in the scorching expansion of Sahara, a young tuareg boy named Iyad Ag Ghali Seeing his father dying in a ruined rebellion. The year 1963 was, and this trauma would leave a permanent impression. Many people of “”, like many people, were hungry for disbelief for Bamako and something else. By the 1980s, between drought and disillusionment, he joined thousands of deported tuareg flowing in Algeria and Libya, where a different revolution was running under the tomb of Muammmar Gaddafi.
As a profile in WSJ notes, Ghali received military training and soon emerged as a charismatic leader not only as a fighter, but also in Tuareg Caus. But this rebel was a rhythm. In refugee camps, he turned to a ragtag group of musicians who called themselves taghrafts Teenreven – “Radio of the desert.” Armed with the poem of electric guitar and rebellion, Tenrevene gave Tuaregs a new language: Music.
Ghali saw his ability and supported him by supplying gear and rehearsal spaces. He even contributed to the song and the collision – not with the drum, but with a metal jerikan. It was a rebellion with a soundtrack. The group will go to win a grammy and play with the choice of Bono and Robert Plant. His beneficiaries, meanwhile, were other schemes.
In 1990, Gahi led a new Tuareg Rebellion, signed a ceasefire in 1991 following an initial profit. He emerged as the face of the rebellion, even representing Tuareg in peace talks. But after the guns fell silent and their fellow fighters faded into government jobs or civil life, stood at a crossroads. The world was appreciating Tinrevan. They helped them get up. But what about their revolution?

From rebellion to religion: a radical turn

In Northern Mali, in the late 1990s, a group of white-robbed Pakistani campaigners arrived from Tabbighi Jamaat. They were not carrying guns, but their ideology was powerful. Their message: Leave the pleasures of this world, present for faith, and spread Islamic purity. And somehow, his words were not most likely to ears.
Ghli, once a nightclub-hoping chain-samokar, who crank Bob Marley in his car, heard. Then he changed.
Outside the whiskey went. Came into the beard and Quran. Friends were stunned. The person who once sung with Tenreven, now scolded him for Debachri. He got away. By the 2000s, he was spending time in mosques in Bamco and Paris, allegedly brushing shoulders with fundamentalists. Even the diplomats said whispering about their radical turn.
When Tuareg began a fresh rebellion in 2011, Ghali watched an inauguration. But this time, he was not talking about Azavad. He was talking about Sharia. The secular MNLA rejected to be Islamist, Ghhali formed his own group: Ansar dine – “Guard of faith.”
The guitar was replaced by gun.

The rise of Ansar Dine and Islamist acquisition of Mali

In 2012, Tuareg and Islamist fighters were swept away by the northern gardener, the army of Ghali seized major cities. Timbaktu, once the heartbeat of Saharan culture, fell under the black flag of Ansar dine.
Ghali did not waste any time. Music was banned. The equipment was tortured. The ancient Sufi temples were broken with picax. Women were ordered indoors. The adulter was stoned. The city became a diastopian nightmare wrapped in religious justification.
France intervened in 2013, pushed jihadis out of cities. But the cloud did not go away. He was re -organized for the next Act, withdrawing from the Adrar Des IFOGHAS mountain.

JNIM: Alliance of terror in Sahel

In 2017, the abuse resumed with a large agenda. He merged many al-Qaeda-related groups in Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam Wall-Muslimin (JNIM) and declared himself their rich.
JNIM became a crisis beyond Sahel. Its fighters launched a deadly raid on soldiers and citizens. They ambushed the convoy, imposed IEDs, and taxed the entire villages. In parts of Mali and Burkina Faso, JNIM became the real government – resolving disputes, collecting grains, and implementing a distorted version of law and order.
Anyone strategist, Ghali tried to brand JNIM as a “appropriate” jihadi option for ISIS. But do not make any mistake: Their fighters still killed the villagers, kidnapped women, and massacred those who protested. In a particularly serious event, he dropped 600 people down to dig the trenches to protect.

Regional fall and international response

The chaos arising out of the war of Ghali has topped the governments. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have seen all the follicles since 2020, Jantas claimed that they could stop jihadis alone. In fact, their policies often play in the hands of Ghali.
The French was thrown out. The United Nations was sent to packing. Russian hire people came from Wagner in his place, whose cruelty carried the local people forward against the state forces. Seeing the abuse, backlash, deployed himself as the protector of the people – all of them ambushed and excluding communities.
He is now in his seventies, a wanted person with an ICC arrest warrant on his head. Still he remains independent, his fighters entered, his reach increased. In the shadow of Sahel, he continues the attacks of attacks, propagating purity.

From beats to bloodshed

Meanwhile, Teenreven tours the world, playing for packed audiences in Boston, Berlin and Bamco. His music talks about longing and disadvantage – the echo of a dream that seemed within reach once.
But the man who once clapped with him, is now a ghost in the mountains, a fugitive with blood on his hands. From the desert rebel to the jihadi warlord, the arc of Iyad Ag Ghali is both extraordinary and tragic.
Once, he helped write the songs of freedom. Now, he silences them.