In Mali, rebels have the wind at their backs
Your Proximities deep dive
Hello everyone,
It’s been almost exactly a year since we published a deep dive on the war in the Sahel, which is easily one of the world’s most under-reported conflicts.
In that piece, I focused on the simultaneous insurgencies that several armed groups were waging against the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in what is known as the triangle, or the tri-border region, where the three countries meet - often dramatically described as the world’s “epicenter of terrorism”.
There have been coups in all three nations in recent years, partly justified by the failure to beat back the insurgents, and all are now run by military juntas.
While al-Qaeda- and ISIS-aligned groups had been active in the area for years, almost overthrowing Mali’s government in 2012, I wrote last year that the Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) militia was growing in strength.
I also quoted Caleb Weiss, an editor at the Long War Journal, who told Reuters: "I don't really see the regimes in Mali, Niger and Burkina holding on forever. Eventually one of them is going to fall or one of them is going to lose a substantial amount of territory, which Burkina Faso already has."
He certainly hasn’t lost that bet yet.
And while Burkina Faso was then the most fertile battleground for JNIM, Mali is now under real pressure and JNIM has found another powerful group to fight alongside. The two even launched a highly coordinated wave of simultaneous attacks in April during which Mali’s defense minister was killed.
It seems like a good time for an update on the latest news. Q&A below.
Bests,
Barry.
Episode 11 of The Proximities Podcast is now live. This week, I spoke to Eric Reidy, Migration & Special Coverage Editor for The New Humanitarian, to dig into what really happened in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa last week beyond the headlines. Our conversation is on Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here and YouTube here.
So what’s been happening in Mali?
For the purposes of this update, let’s start with the startling attacks that were carried out on April 25. It’s maybe a little inaccurate to say that they were entirely unexpected. As I said, JNIM had been seeing increasing success.
But two things really stood out here:
JNIM wasn’t alone. It launched the attacks alongside a group called the Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a group mostly made up of members of the ethnic Tuareg minority who are fighting for an independent Tuareg state. It was the first such operation in more than a decade, and it went incredibly smoothly. It was viewed as professional and perfectly synchronized.
The scale and the fact the attacks hit right at the heart of Mali’s government. This assault was not confined to rebel strongholds; there were more than half a dozen simultaneous attacks. Fighters took the strategic town of Kidal. The airport in the capital Bamako was attacked. And in the biggest blow, Mali’s defense minister, Sadio Camara, was killed in a suicide attack on his home.
As mentioned in Proximities before, the Russian state-controlled Africa Corps (previously the Wagner Group) militia is also an important player, with fighters stationed in Mali to support the junta in its war against the rebels.
But it has suffered significant defeats on the battlefield and, last month, Human Rights Watch documented an air raid in which the Russians killed eight civilians.
Abuses like that can have an important impact, which I will explain below.
Are we looking at a government being toppled here?
Well, when a rebel group manages to kill your defense minister, it’s something to seriously worry about. At the very least, it’s a hell of a psychological blow and it tells Mali’s military rulers that they are not invincible and can be got to.
I should add that there is a new minister. Junta leader Gen. Assimi Goïta gave himself the job in what some saw as a sign his authority was threatened.
Most worrying for the government, though, is the alliance between JNIM and the FLA, which the groups had reportedly been negotiating for more than a year.
