DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — An alliance of al-Qaida-linked militants and separatists carried out the largest coordinated attack in over a decade in Mali, marking a dangerous escalation in what is widely considered one of the world’s deadliest regions for extremist violence.
The weekend attack marked also a challenge for Russia, which has partnered with Mali’s military-led government after it distanced itself from former allies such as France. The attack was
unprecedented for its scale — both for the number of locations struck and the prominence of the targets, analysts said Monday.
Authorities have not yet released an official death toll but among those killed was Mali’s defense minister who died when a car bomb targeted his home.
The near-simultaneous attacks on Saturday struck across the country — including the airport of the country's capital, Bamako, the nearby garrison town of Kati, and several northern and central cities such as Kidal and Sevare.
The separatist Azawad Liberation Front said the key northern city of Kidal is now in its hands. Kidal's capture in a similar militant-insurgent alliance over a decade ago was at the root of the security crisis that has shaken Mali.
Here’s what to know.
Landlocked Mali is part of the Sahel, a vast strip of land south of the Sahara Desert that has become the epicenter of extremist violence in recent years.
According to last year's Global Terrorism Index by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the region now accounts for 51% of deaths worldwide caused by violent extremism, up from 1% almost two decades ago. Deaths from extremist attacks have increased nearly tenfold since 2019.
For more than a decade, Mali has been plagued by militants affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, as well as a separatist rebellion in the north.
Tuareg separatists and jihadi groups worked together before, in 2012, when they seized much of northern Mali, triggering a collapse of the state's authority that prompted a French military intervention.
The al-Qaida linked JNIM group — Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin — has expanded in recent years, seizing vast swaths of territory and recently blockading off Bamako from fuel shipments.The group is also active in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, and has struck in Benin, Ivory Coast and Togo.
JNIM pulls its resources by extortion of “taxes” from local populations, stealing cattle and controlling the gold mining in the region. It stages sieges, kidnappings and sets off explosions to dominate supply routes.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said the group had a “full war chest” ahead of the attacks, after reportedly collecting at least $50 million in ransom for the release of a member of the royal family in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and two of his business associates kidnapped near Bamako last year.
The UAE never confirmed the abduction nor the ransom paid, and The Associated Press could not confirm the reports.
In northern Mali, Tuareg-led separatist groups have been fighting for years to create an independent state named Azawad. In 2024, they merged into the Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, which fought alongside JNIM in the weekend attack.
Despite ideological differences, JNIM and the FLA have a common interest in routing out the Malian army from northern and central Mali, as well as Russian soldiers allied with Mali’s security forces, said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank.
Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are ruled by military leaders who took power by force in recent years, pledging to provide more security to citizens after accusing former democratically elected governments of corruption and of being propped up by France.
Despite years of French military presence and U.N. peacekeeping, attacks had multiplied since 2014, with territory steadily slipping from government control as civilians continued to bear the brunt of the violence, fueling popular discontent, which the juntas then rode to power.
These West African countries then turned to Russia as their new security partner, forcing traditional allies like France and a U.N. peacekeeping mission to leave. At the same time, they also created their own security partnership, the Alliance of Sahel States.
Now Mali's top security partner is the recently created Africa Corps, a Russian military unit that reports to the defense ministry in Moscow, estimated to have around 2,000 troops in Mali.
But the security situation in Sahel has worsened since the military governments took power — starting with Mali in 2020 — with record numbers of attacks and civilians killed by both Islamic fighters and government forces, analysts say.
Laessing said French forces and the U.N. peacekeepers had effectively filled the vacuum left by a largely absent state, particularly in central and northern Mali. Their withdrawal left people vulnerable and made them targets for jihadi recruitment, he said.
Russian support has not filled the gap. On Monday, Russia's Africa Corps said on the messaging channel Telegram that its fighters had withdrawn from Kidal, two days after FLA said it had taken the city.
Kidal has been at the heart of Mali’s security crisis. In 2012, Tuareg separatists and jihadi groups seized the city along with much of northern Mali. Then Malian government forces and Russian mercenaries with the Wagner group in 2023 retook the city in a significant victory.
The FLA claimed in a statement Saturday it had negotiated a deal, allowing the Russian and Malian forces to pull out of Kidal, departing under rebel escort from the former U.N. peacekeeping base.
In recent months, JNIM relentlessly attacked fuel tankers on the road, coming from neighboring Senegal and Ivory Coast, plunging Bamako into crisis well before the Iran war tightened global fuel supplies.
Fuel shortages followed, with long lines snaking around gas stations. The Malian army escorted some fuel convoys into the capital, bringing only temporary and partial relief.
A fragile truce was reached in late March but has since collapsed and attacks on supply routes resumed ahead of the weekend attacks.
Analysts say JNIM's goal is to use the blockade to pressure businesses and residents to distance themselves from Mali's military authorities, undermining the government’s legitimacy and authority. But they say the militants don't appear to seek power themselves.
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