AP
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A TikTok influencer accused of posting videos supporting the Malian military has been killed by a suspected jihadist, authorities in Mali, West Africa, say.
“Young TikTok user Mariam Cissé was abducted by armed men on Friday while going to the weekly market in Echelle. The next day at dusk, the same men took her back to Independence Square in Tonka and executed her in front of a crowd,” Timbuktu Mayor Yehia Tandina told The Associated Press.
The incident comes as armed jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda close in on the capital, Bamako. The country’s military junta and its Russian partners are struggling to counter jihadists who now hold sway in many parts of the vast Sahel country.
Mamadou Konipou, the mayor of Tonka in the Timbuktu region, confirmed Cissé’s murder, but did not have any further information.
Tonka is a village on the Niger River about 140 miles from Timbuktu. Members of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jamaat Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslim (JNIM) are known to operate there. No group has taken responsibility for the killings.
Although Cissé was not a member of the military, he occasionally posted images of himself in military uniform to his more than 140,000 TikTok followers, which is believed to have attracted the attention of armed groups.
Timbuktu’s mayor said Cissé received death threats days before his abduction.
Mali has been at war with armed groups since 2012, and the fighting has intensified over the past decade. The military seized power in 2020 under the pretext of curbing security instability. The following year, another military leader seized power in a coup. Monitoring groups say security has worsened since then.
Armed groups, primarily JNIM, operate across a wide area of the countryside. This landlocked country is currently under a fuel blockade by JNIM.
As the situation in Mali worsens, countries including the UK, US, Germany and France are calling on their citizens to leave Bamako.
