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Jihadists say killing of UN peacekeepers from Chad retribution for ties with Israel

An attack by an Islamic terror group killed 10 U.N. peacekeepers from Chad and wounded at least 25 others in Mali on Sunday in what the attackers said was a response to Chadian President Idriss Déby’s renewed diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

Chad's President Idriss Déby during a visit at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem on Nov. 26, 2018. Photo by Yonatan SIndel/Flash90.
Chad’s President Idriss Déby during a visit at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem on Nov. 26, 2018. Photo by Yonatan SIndel/Flash90.

A major attack by an Islamic terror group killed 10 U.N. peacekeepers from Chad and wounded at least 25 others in Mali on Sunday in what the attackers said was a response to Chadian President Idriss Déby’s renewed diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Chad on Sunday, formally rebooting the diplomatic ties which had been severed in 1972.

Assailants in armed vehicles from the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen group arrived at the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali and attacked.

While peacekeepers succeeded in pushing the jihadists back, numerous casualties were reported.

U.N. peacekeepers are present in Mali to ward of jihadist and separatist attacks, but have only proved to be moderately successful in recent years.

“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost—taking out three of yours.”
Crowds thronged the plaza at Judaism’s second-holiest site, with the event broadcast on giant screens along the Old City walls.
The meeting included a reunion between two Satmar rebbes who have been at odds since a succession dispute divided the community after their father’s death in 2006.
“By welcoming Mamdani into a Jewish space as if he were safe, we tell Jews to lower their guard and tell everyone else that our concerns are overblown,” Inna Vernikov told JNS. “They are not.”