The Sahel Conflict Explained: Why Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger Are Fighting Al-Qaeda's JNIM

Who is fighting whom

The central Sahel — the semi-arid belt across Africa below the Sahara — is home to one of the world's fastest-growing conflicts. On one side stand the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, all ruled by juntas that seized power in coups between 2020 and 2023. Backing them is Russia's Africa Corps, the paramilitary force that succeeded the Wagner Group. On the other side is Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) — the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims — the al-Qaeda affiliate that security analysts describe as the most powerful jihadist movement in the Sahel. Also active in parts of the region is the Islamic State Sahel Province, a rival jihadist organisation.

JNIM is not new. As Reuters has documented, the group spun out of an ethnic Tuareg uprising in 2012 and has spent over a decade advancing from northern Mali into the centre of the country and inside neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. What has changed is the scale and boldness of its campaign.

A decade-long war that accelerated

The roots of the conflict go back to 2012, when a Tuareg separatist rebellion in northern Mali was hijacked by Islamist factions. French troops intervened in 2013 (Operation Serval), pushing the jihadists back but never defeating them. Over the following decade, the insurgency spread steadily southward into central Mali and across borders, fed by local grievances — ethnic tensions between farming and herding communities, abusive counter-terrorism operations, corruption, and a near-absent state in rural areas.

The turning point came with the coups. Mali's military seized power in 2020 and again in 2021; Burkina Faso followed in 2022; Niger in 2023. Each junta promised to turn the tide against the jihadists, and the three countries formed a political and security alliance (the Alliance of Sahel States), stepping outside Western partnerships. In Mali's case, the junta severed defence cooperation with France and the United States and leaned on Russia instead — a strategy Reuters described, quoting analysts, as a failure.

The strategy has not delivered. As Reuters reported in September 2026, JNIM killed more than 100 Malian soldiers in central Mali in a single month. In the September 10 attack on the town of Dioura, a security source said 130 soldiers died with more than 100 taken hostage (a diplomatic source put the toll at around 120). JNIM itself claimed 150. In a separate action, the group said it struck air defences at the airport in Sévaré — which houses military aircraft and drones — and claimed 33 pro-government fighters killed in Sévaré and Konna. Residents told Reuters of six consecutive nights of shelling at Sévaré airport and of JNIM fighters on motorbikes encircling the military camp at Konna. The Malian army said it had evacuated the Dioura camp and mounted a retaliatory operation lasting more than a week. The Russian paramilitary group Africa Corps supports the Malian army in combat in both areas.

The same pattern is visible beyond Mali. Earlier in 2026, JNIM joined forces with the Tuareg-led separatist group FLA in nationwide attacks that killed Mali's defence minister and hit the main airport in Bamako, Reuters reported.

The fuel blockade: siege without an army

JNIM's most distinctive weapon is economic. In 2025, the group imposed a fuel blockade on Mali's capital, Bamako — attacking fuel convoys from coastal countries including Ivory Coast and Senegal, strangling the city's diesel supply, forcing schools to shut and depriving businesses of generator electricity. Reuters described it as the gravest challenge yet to the military leaders who took power in 2021, with analysts warning the goal may be to trigger Mali's third coup since 2020 — further depriving the country of a viable power centre.

JNIM announced the blockade in early September 2025, saying its target was "these bandits who are in power," whom it accused of persecuting Malians outside the capital. The tactic worked: a jihadist force that analysts say lacks the capability to seize a city of 4 million people brought it to the edge of paralysis without fighting a pitched battle. As Justyna Gudzowska of the investigative research group The Sentry told Reuters: "The fuel blockade is more than an act of economic warfare — it is also a terrorist tactic. It instils fear among Bamako's ruling elite and the general population, creating the perception that the capital is under siege and that JNIM is closing in."

The blockade model — control of roads, markets and supply routes to tax, recruit and strangle — is how JNIM governs where the state has retreated. In areas it dominates, it has announced travel restrictions and decrees on social conduct, and brief occupations of towns have been marked by movement restrictions, extrajudicial executions and curbs on education, according to Gudzowska.

Why the Sahel conflict matters

First, it is a humanitarian catastrophe at scale: millions are displaced across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and their neighbours, driven by insecurity, collapsed services and climate stress. Second, it is a geopolitical pivot — the Sahel is where Russia's Africa Corps has its largest footprint, replacing French and American counter-terrorism missions with a harder, less accountable model. Third, it is a terrorism export risk: a JNIM or Islamic State foothold across three adjoining states creates sanctuaries, financing networks (including multi-million-dollar hostage ransoms — Reuters reported a $50 million deal for two Emirati hostages) and weapons pipelines that spill into coastal West Africa, including Benin, Togo and the northern borderlands of Nigeria.

The conflict also feeds other crises on this site: the same pattern of resource-starved, attritional warfare is visible in [Sudan](/articles/2026-09-27-sudan-civil-war-explained), where we have also covered the [RSF's drone campaign in Kordofan](/articles/2026-09-28-sudan-rsf-el-obeid-offensive-buildup).

What to watch

Three indicators matter most. Military pressure: whether JNIM can sustain its monthly tempo of mass-casualty attacks on Malian forces, and whether the blockade model returns to Bamako. Regime stability: Mali arrested two generals in August 2025 over an alleged destabilisation plot; a third coup would be the scenario JNIM is reportedly trying to provoke. The alliance: the three juntas' security pact is the region's last collective structure — as one senior diplomat told Reuters, "If Mali collapses, everything collapses."