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Mali Offers $3.5 Million Reward for Sahel Al-Qaeda Chief

Iyad Ag Ghaly in his last appearance, when he vowed to defeat Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and their Russian allies (circulated)
Iyad Ag Ghaly in his last appearance, when he vowed to defeat Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and their Russian allies (circulated)
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Mali Offers $3.5 Million Reward for Sahel Al-Qaeda Chief

Iyad Ag Ghaly in his last appearance, when he vowed to defeat Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and their Russian allies (circulated)
Iyad Ag Ghaly in his last appearance, when he vowed to defeat Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and their Russian allies (circulated)

Mali's military government on Thursday offered a $3.5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or killing of the leader of Al-Qaeda's Sahel branch.

Iyad Ag Ghaly, head of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), is the region's most wanted man as the leader of the biggest militant force battling the juntas ruling many of the Sahel states.

Ghaly, a former Malian diplomat and Tuareg rebel, is also on the US terrorist list and the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Since its creation in 2017, his JNIM has been blamed for a number of daring attacks on the military authorities.

In a statement read on national television, the military-run security ministry offered a two billion CFA francs ($3.5 million) bounty for information helping the "capture or neutralization" of Ghaly and $2.5 million for one of his deputies, Amadou Kouffa. According to AFP, it also offered cash for intelligence on two Tuareg rebel leaders.

"These individuals are actively sought by the authorities for their alleged involvement in the planning, organization and execution of terrorist acts that have threatened the safety of people and their property within the national territory," the statement said.

Mali has been confronted by nearly a decade and a half of unrest led by the JNIM and fighters associated with ISIS, as well as by criminal gangs. The country has been ruled by the military since a 2020 coup.

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World

Vessel Hit by 'Unknown Projectile' in Hormuz Strait

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam,Oman, June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam,Oman, June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
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Vessel Hit by 'Unknown Projectile' in Hormuz Strait

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam,Oman, June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam,Oman, June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer

A cargo ship was damaged after it was struck by an unknown projectile off the Omani coast in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, a British maritime agency said, reporting no casualties.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) security agency reported that the incident occurred 7.5 nautical miles (14 kilometers) southeast of Dahit, in Oman's Musandam exclave.

"A cargo vessel has been hit on the starboard side by an unknown projectile, causing damage to the bridge. Master has reported no casualties and no environmental impact," AFP quoted UKMTO as saying.

British marine security firm Vanguard Tech identified that vessel as the Singapore-flagged container ship Ever Lovely.

The incident follows more than a week of relative calm in the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran and Washington lifted competing blockades as part of a memorandum of understanding to halt the Middle East war.

World

Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to End Legal Protections for Haitians, Syrians

The sun sets on the US Supreme Court building after a stormy day in Washington, US, November 11, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis
The sun sets on the US Supreme Court building after a stormy day in Washington, US, November 11, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis
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Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to End Legal Protections for Haitians, Syrians

The sun sets on the US Supreme Court building after a stormy day in Washington, US, November 11, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis
The sun sets on the US Supreme Court building after a stormy day in Washington, US, November 11, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.

The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.

The Trump administration argued judges that can't second-guess immigrations officials' decisions about the protections, which were intended to be temporary.

Immigration attorneys said the countries remain unsafe to return, and the administration ended them in an unlawfully hasty process tinged by racial animus. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating dogs and cats.

The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.

Federal authorities deny that racial animus played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump’s first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.

DHS has ended the protections people from 13 countries since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, including some that had been in place for more than a decade, The AP news reported.

The terminations were made even though countries like Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, immigration attorneys said. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.

The House passed legislation with a rare bipartisan vote in April that would extend protections for Haitians, though the bill has languished in the Senate.

The US first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.

Syrians, meanwhile, were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it doesn’t provide a path to citizenship.

World

Macron: French Navy Intercepted Another Russian 'Shadow Fleet' Tanker

France's President Emmanuel Macron addresss the press at the end of the meeting of state leaders of the European Group of Five (E5) and the NATO Secretary General, on June 24, 2026 at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron addresss the press at the end of the meeting of state leaders of the European Group of Five (E5) and the NATO Secretary General, on June 24, 2026 at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
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Macron: French Navy Intercepted Another Russian 'Shadow Fleet' Tanker

France's President Emmanuel Macron addresss the press at the end of the meeting of state leaders of the European Group of Five (E5) and the NATO Secretary General, on June 24, 2026 at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron addresss the press at the end of the meeting of state leaders of the European Group of Five (E5) and the NATO Secretary General, on June 24, 2026 at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that his country's navy had intercepted an oil tanker as it transited near the coast of Sicily, in what he called his country's latest action against the 'shadow fleet' Russia uses to ship oil and gas and ⁠to skirt Western ⁠sanctions.

"This new action against the shadow fleet, conducted days after a similar operation by Britain, shows Europeans' determination," Macron said in ⁠a post on Instagram, adding that the interception took place on Tuesday.

"We will not let the shadow fleet evade sanctions and finance the Russian war effort," Reuters quoted Macron as saying.

Macron posted a video showing Marines descending from helicopters onto the ⁠Deliver.

⁠France has intercepted at least five tankers it says are part of Russia's shadow fleet, old vessels that Russia has relied on to ship oil and gas and to skirt Western sanctions.

Moscow has called such actions illegal.