Islamic State – Sahel Province
Faction of the Islámic State in the Sahara Desert
The Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP), formerly known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS), is a transnational Islamist militant group adhering to the ideology of Salafi Jihadism. IS-GS was formed on 15 May 2015 as the result of a split within the militant group Al-Mourabitoun. The rift was a reaction to the adherence of one of its leaders, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, to the Islamic State. From March 2019 to 2022, IS-GS was formally part of the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP); when it was also called "ISWAP-Greater Sahara". In March 2022, IS declared the province autonomous, separating it from its West Africa Province and naming it Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP).
History
Al-Mourabitoun was created on 22 August 2013 after the merging of MUJAO and Al-Mulathameen. On 13 May 2015, elements of Al-Mourabitoun under the leadership of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. It operated independently until 30 October 2016, when it was formally recognized by the Islamic State.
The group's ranks increased by dozens of Malian militants and sympathizers from the Gao Region near Ménaka.
On 1 November 2019, gunmen killed over 50 soldiers in the 2019 Indelimane attack in the Ménaka Region of Mali.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Islamic State – Sahel Province” is faction of the Islámic State in the Sahara Desert. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Islamic, State and Sahel, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “faction of the Islámic State in the Sahara Desert” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q36504631. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Islamic State – Sahel Province” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.