Ansar Dine

Ansar Dine (Arabic: أنصار الدين ʾAnṣār ad-Dīn, also transliterated Ançar Deen), meaning "helpers of the religion" (Islam) (Defenders of the Faith) and also known as Ansar al-Din (abbreviated as AAD), was a Sunni Islamist militant group led by Iyad Ag Ghaly. Ansar Dine sought to impose absolute sharia across Mali. The group took over the city of Timbuktu in 2012, which prompted the French-led intervention, Operation Serval. The organization is not to be confused with the Sufi movement Ançar Dine, founded in Southern Mali in the 1990s by Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara, which is fundamentally opposed to militant Islamism. Ansar Dine was active from March 2012 until March 2017, when it merged with other militant Islamist groups to form Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin.