Mauritanian president pardons al-Qaeda associates after announcing their "repentance"

Mauritania's presidency has announced the release of a number of prisoners convicted of extremism-related cases, under a presidential decree issued by President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, following what authorities described as "successful intellectual revisions" led by religious scholars and a number of prisoners.

The presidency said in a statement that the decision came within the framework of the Mauritanian security approach, which combines security measures and intellectual dialogue, noting that the dialogues held by scholars with the prisoners led a number of them to retreat from their previous ideas, declare repentance, ask for forgiveness and prepare to reintegrate into society.

According to the statement, 3 prisoners benefited from the pardon of the rest of their sentences depriving them of liberty, in addition to fines and judicial fees, while 6 other convicts benefited from replacing the original sentence with the time they had already spent in prison.

Mauritanian journalist Mohamed Ould Aib, who specializes in the affairs of jihadist groups, quoted the names of those released: Khadim Bashir Samman , Abdelrahmane Mohamed El Hussein, Mohamed El Amin Mohamed Mbala , Ahmed El Di Hamdi Kinna , Youssef Cherif Kalisa, Mohamed Ahmed Beija , Mohamed Abdi Bilal Miloud and Abdelrahman Mohamed Issa Arda

Mauritanian authorities have not released official details about their previous roles or the nature of their sentences.

Leader close to Osama bin Laden released

Among the names released was Abd al-Rahman Mohammed al-Hussein, known by the nicknames "Abu Younis al-Mauritani" and "Abu Yusuf al-Afghani", who is a well-known figure within jihadist circles linked to al-Qaeda.

According to Mohamedine Ould Aib, "Abu Younes al-Mauritani" was a close associate of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, and is credited with a role in conveying a message from the group's leadership to northern Mali in 2004 to obtain the allegiance of the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which later became the branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Authorities say this approach has helped curb the activity of militant groups inside the country and has been praised by regional and international bodies, while its supporters see it as a more effective alternative than the traditional security approach.

Who is the servant of the son of quail?

Leader Khadim Ould Semane has been convicted of orchestrating and leading a series of bloody armed operations and confrontations in the capital Nouakchott, as emir and founder of the Al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar Allah Al-Murabitoun in the Land of Chinguete.

These operations, for which he was sentenced to heavy judicial sentences, are the most prominent cases that led to his death sentence in 2010 before his last presidential pardon after more than 16 years in prison.

The most prominent cases attributed to Ould Samman include the attack on the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott (February 2008), where he was accused of directly planning the armed attack that targeted the embassy headquarters and nearby cafes, as well as planning to target security leaders and vital  facilities  , where he  confessed during interrogations that he returned to Mauritania at the behest of the organization's leadership to carry out financing operations through "armed robbery and preparing a list of more than 40 officials and officers to target them."

Based on these files, he was sentenced to death in October 2010, before being released as part of the last presidential pardon after announcing his reversal of his previous ideas.