The erosion of international counterterrorism pressure on terrorists in Mali will likely enable al Qaeda’s regional associate to gradually rebuild external attack capabilities in its support zones to conduct external attacks. The drawdown of international forces since 2022 has caused more proficient counterterrorism forces to vacate areas susceptible to al Qaeda–linked JNIM, which has expanded and consolidated control over parts of northern Mali after the withdrawal of non-UN European troops in 2022. The UN Security Council unanimously voted on June 30 to end its peacekeeping mission in Mali by the end of 2023, which will complete the withdrawal of nearly all international forces from Mali, except the Kremlin-funded Wagner Group. Wagner has not slowed the expansion of Salafi-jihadi groups, and CTP has previously assessed that Wagner’s human rights abuses are almost certainly fueling the insurgency.
Al Qaeda–linked militants in JNIM have carried out regional terror attacks and still aspire to build external attack capabilities targeting the West, despite giving priority to their locally focused insurgency in recent years. JNIM has encouraged external attacks but deprioritized them to focus on local objectives and avoid international retaliation. Some of the group’s leadership has threatened to attack Western partners and European countries in 2023, indicating that at least some of the group’s factions are actively aiming to regenerate transnational capabilities.
JNIM’s growing support zones in northern Mali will almost certainly give it access to the space, resources, and recruitment pools needed to stage regional or international terror attacks. The French withdrawal in 2022 removed effective counterterrorism pressure on JNIM’s support zones and allowed the group unchallenged access to most of rural northern Mali. The departure of UN forces will further strengthen these support zones by allowing JNIM to expand its influence deeper into the urban centers that UN forces secured. CTP previously assessed that the withdrawal of UN forces will also very likely collapse the 2015 peace deal between the Malian government and former rebel groups with ties to JNIM, allowing JNIM to assert itself as the primary power broker and partner for these local actors. The regional Islamic State affiliate has been the main challenger to JNIM in northern Mali since the French withdrawal, but JNIM has used the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) threat to increase ties with local actors as an anti-ISGS protector and recently launched a counteroffensive against the Islamic State affiliate.
JNIM would could target Western personnel in Africa or West African partners with little warning. Regional al Qaeda affiliates have amplified threats to US diplomatic facilitates and personnel despite decreasing attacks on the homeland over the past 10 years. The United States has responded to these threats by restricting US activities in the affected areas, benefiting the Salafi-jihadi groups. This reaction makes attacks in areas such as the Gulf of Guinea countries where the US is increasing efforts to contain the group’s insurgency prime targets. Terror attacks on partner countries also raise the costs of counterterrorism cooperation with the West, weaken faith in Western security cooperation, and undermine Western investment. Al Qaeda–linked militants carried out several high-visibility terror attacks in West Africa throughout the mid-2010s and are active in regional smuggling networks that CTP previously assessed it could use to quickly reactivate these regional capabilities.
JNIM could also send attack cells to Europe via smuggling networks in North or West Africa. JNIM is an affiliate of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and AQIM is a link between JNIM and al Qaeda senior leaders and a financial and ideological facilitator for JNIM. JNIM and AQIM hold positions along major trafficking routes that run to Europe via northwestern Africa and coastal West Africa. Al Qaeda–linked militants have used smuggling networks to move personnel and assets into North Africa for over a decade but have not used these networks to support operations in coastal West Africa or Europe.
JNIM expanding havens in the Sahel will increase the risk of external attacks, even if its leadership does not give priority to rebuilding transnational attacks over its local insurgency. JNIM has historically focused primarily on its local insurgency over external attacks. Salafi-jihadi groups can shift from being local insurgencies to transnational attack cells due to ideological, bureaucratic, and organizational reasons with little warning. Other al Qaeda–linked groups have opportunistically supported transnational attacks when willing volunteers approach them, even if the groups were not actively plotting attacks. More internationally minded factions within JNIM can also use safe havens to plot transnational attacks, similar to al Qaeda’s relationship with the Taliban.
The Malian junta’s poor relationship with Europe and the 2022 French withdrawal have decreased the deterrent power of international retaliation against JNIM, which may embolden the group to target Europe in a most-dangerous scenario. The Malian junta effectively forced French and UN forces to withdraw from the country after months of preventing them from effectively operating. Low Malian public opinion about Western troops in Mali and decreasing Western public opinion on prolonged deployments in foreign countries further complicate meaningful Western engagement in the future. These factors would limit Western responses to an external attack to the over-the-horizon drone counterterrorism seen in Afghanistan.