[9][10] Al-Mourabitoun was composed mostly of Tuaregs and Arabs from the northern Mali regions of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao, but also included Algerians, Tunisians and other nationalities.

Abubakr was reportedly killed by French Special Forces in northeastern Mali between 10 and 17 April 2014, as was senior commander Omar Ould Hamaha weeks earlier.

[1] The group is named after the Almoravids, a Berber North-West African Islamic dynasty of the 11th and 12th centuries, spanning from Morocco to Senegal and the Iberian Peninsula.

[citation needed] On 14 May 2015, Adnan Abu Walid Sahraoui released an audio message pledging the group's allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

[21] On 2 March 2017, al-Mourabitoun's cells in Mali, along with those of Ansar Dine, Macina Liberation Front and the Saharan branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb merged into Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM).