Huzeifa's death this Sunday had been confirmed after the operation in the region's Indelimane sector, they said, but did not give further details.

The United States (US) State Department's Rewards for Justice program offers a bounty of up to $5 million for information on Huzeifa for his alleged participation in a 2017 attack in neighbouring Niger that killed four US and four Nigerien soldiers.

Over the past decade, attacks by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State have killed thousands of people in Mali, Niger, and neighbouring Burkina Faso, destabilising West Africa's central Sahel region.

As of March, the protracted security and humanitarian crisis had displaced over 3 million people in the region, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

--Reuters--