Photos of the IS group’s Senegalese fighters in Libya

This photo was published by a Senegalese man who said it was a group of Senegalese jihadists in Sirte, Libya. Unfortunately, the photo has not yet been verified by an official source. It was posting alongside a series of other photos showing other armed Senegalese soldiers, supposedly members of the IS contingent.





In another photo, published by the official media branch of the IS group in Tripoli, Libya, a man in a wheelchair speaks at a religious gathering in Sirte. This man also appears in the centre of the first image.

Senegal is on edge after jihadist attacks have swept West Africa in the past few months, striking Mali in December 2015 and previously calm Burkina Faso in January 2015. Senegal is worried that it might be the jihadists’ next target. In a sweep aimed at cracking down on insecurity, Senegal arrested 900 people in the cities of Dakar and Thies last month. Though most of these arrests were not on terror-related suspicions, the police said that the raids were carried out because of the terrorist threat.In this context of tension, many Senegalese have been sharing an undated photo originally posted on Facebook on December 9, 2015 by Abdourahmane Mendy, a house painter from Dakar. The photo shows a group of about a dozen men, said to be Senegalese, posing with the IS group flag in Sirte. It’s hard to verify if the photo was indeed taken in Sirte. While the IS group is present in Sirte, the lush vegetation in the photo doesn’t seem to correspond with the landscape in that part of Libya.However, one of the men in the photo also appears in another taken by the IS group’s media service in Tripoli during a religious gathering in Sirte. In the second photo, he is pictured in a wheelchair. Several Senegalese jihadists have identified him as "Abou Hatem", the "spiritual leader" of the group in Facebook posts.Moreover, sources close to the IS group in Libya confirmed to FRANCE 24 that Senegalese nationals had been in Sirte “for some time” and that they “actively participate in combat in the region”. Two of them are said to have died in battle in Libya recently.