JNIM, the affiliate of Al Qaeda, is already the biggest threat in the Sahel and puts the Malian and Burkinabé junta in trouble

The terrorist group has dealt strong blows with its latest actions in both countries

Oct. 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), the affiliate of Al Qaeda in the Sahel created in 2017 from the union of several jihadist groups, is today the greatest threat to security in the region and with its actions In recent weeks it has been putting the military junta that governs Mali and Burkina Faso in trouble.

“The most important threat in the Sahel continues to be JNIM, due to the large territory it controls or operates in,” the UN committee in charge of monitoring sanctions against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State warned last July. In its report, prepared based on the information provided by the member states, it warned that the Al Qaeda affiliate has “approximately between 5,000 and 6,000 combatants” and continues its expansion, “especially in Burkina Faso, but also significant in Mali and Niger.

Since then, JNIM, led by Iyad ag Ghali, a veteran fighter who ended up joining the jihadist struggle from the ranks of the Tuareg rebels, has carried out two major attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali that have called into question the ability of the military junta to contain its inexorable advance.

The first of them occurred on August 24 in the surroundings of Barsalogho, in the province of Sanmatenga, in Burkina Faso. JNIM militiamen burst in on motorcycles, massacring the residents who were digging trenches around this central-northern town by order of the Burkinabe Army precisely to protect it from the jihadists.

The initial balance provided by the residents spoke of hundreds of deaths and later the UN put the death toll at around 200, although a report from French Intelligence, to which CNN has recently had access, has raised the figure to 600, which would make this action one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on the continent, if not the deadliest, in a country, Burkina Faso, that until 2015 had not experienced any action of this type.

Furthermore, this attack occurred two weeks after another attributed to JNIM against a military convoy in the town of Tawori in which “no less than 150 soldiers” were killed, according to this same source. In June, the Al Qaeda affiliate had already killed another hundred soldiers in another attack in Mansila.

DETERIORATION OF THE SITUATION IN BURKINA FASO

Thus, the French report highlights the “very significant deterioration” of the security situation in Burkina Faso, where “terrorist groups are enjoying increasing freedom of action because the security forces are incapable of confronting it.” . It should be remembered that the junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré has mobilized tens of thousands of Burkinabes as Defense Volunteers to support the Army in the fight against terrorism.

In this context, the junta announced on September 24 that it had thwarted a new coup attempt, after having also done the same in June. On this occasion, it was reported that Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who led the first military coup in January 2022 and was subsequently overthrown by Traoré in September of that year, was behind the attempt, as well as Western Intelligence agencies and dissidents living in neighboring countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria.

Two years after coming to power, Traoré offered an interview on October 5 in which he made clear his desire to recover the integrity of the territory from the jihadists. In this sense, he recalled the plan to recruit 30,000 troops and stated that the offensive “will resume very soon” after having decreased in intensity “due to the rainy season.”

“2025 is decisive and we are going to conquer 30% of the remaining territory,” promised Colonel Traoré, while announcing the acquisition of new, more effective military material and ruling out any negotiations with the jihadists, whom he called on to “lay down their weapons.” “.

JNIM HITS IN BAMAKO

In neighboring Mali the situation is no more hopeful. On September 17, JNIM militiamen broke into a Gendarmerie school and a military base near the Bamako airport, in the first direct attack in the Malian capital since 2015, when an attack against a hotel left around twenty people. dead.

The Government has not offered any official report on the attack, but various sources put the death toll at around 80, to which dozens of wounded should be added. In addition, videos were spread on social networks in which one of the assailants was seen setting fire to the presidential plane, in a clear challenge to the power of the junta.

The attack, in addition to its coordination and magnitude, also has a strong symbolic character. Experts agree that JNIM seeks to demonstrate its ability to attack even in the capital, also doing so against military and therefore ‘hard’ targets, and also to make it clear that it is against the junta and the security forces, and not the citizens, whose support he ultimately wants to gain.

Furthermore, the date chosen was not random, since it was the anniversary of the Gendarmerie and the day after the first anniversary of the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) made up of the coup junta of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. .

The Al Qaeda affiliate has continued its actions since then. Thus, last weekend, JNIM carried out three simultaneous attacks against bases of the Malian Army and Russian mercenaries in the north of the country in which suicide bombers were used for the first time since September 2023, although on this occasion They were not successful. Thus, the militiamen tried to assault the Ber military base and simultaneously attacked the airfields of the bases in Timbuktu and Gao with rockets, although they missed their target.

ATTACKS NEAR THE CAPITAL AND BORDERS

According to estimates by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), a think-tank dependent on the US Department of Defense, attacks within a 150 kilometer radius of Bamako are expected to triple this year, reaching 34, compared to 13 in 2022 and only three in 2020.

Likewise, in a recent report it warns that the deaths caused by the actions of Islamist groups will double this year in the south of the country, where their presence is a priori less extensive, compared to the previous year, reaching 335 deaths.

In the last twelve months, in addition, there has also been an increase in attacks by jihadists – presumably JNIM – in a radius of 50 kilometers with the borders with the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania, with some two dozen incidents of this type while in previous years there were hardly any similar events.

“These trends refute the military junta’s claims that the situation in Mali is improving,” defends the ACSS in its analysis after the double attack in Bamako, recalling that since 2022 it has also had the support of around a thousand Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group – now renamed Africa Corps -.

But apart from the already complicated situation in these two countries, and also in Niger, where JNIM is present but to a lesser extent, its expansion to the south is worrying. The aforementioned UN report recognizes that northern Ivory Coast and Ghana can serve as “logistical sanctuaries”, although there is no “acute problem” while in Togo and Benin there are increasingly more attacks. In early October JNIM carried out its second deadliest attack to date in Togo, leaving nine civilians and ten military personnel dead.