INTEL READS: Mali on the Brink of Collapse as Jihadists Threaten to Overrun the Country (via The Soufan Center's IntelBrief)
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As published on The Soufan Center’s IntelBrief on 04 November 2025
Bottom Line Up Front
The West African country of Mali stands on the brink of collapse, with al-Qaeda’s Sahelian branch, Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), choking off the country’s fuel supplies, leaving the government in the capital of Bamako vulnerable to being overrun.
The fuel blockade is part of JNIM’s evolving strategy, which now features an economic warfare component and aims to demonstrate to the Malian population that the current government is incapable of providing for its citizens or protecting them.
There are increasing concerns that if Mali falls, there could be a domino effect with other governments in the region, including in Burkina Faso and/or Niger, and worries that momentum will propel the jihadists throughout coastal West Africa.
If the government in Mali does fall, it would be a blow to Russia — which helps to militarily back the Malian government — showcasing once again that Moscow’s military muscle is not a panacea for weak and fragile states.
The West African country of Mali stands on the brink of collapse, with al-Qaeda’s Sahelian branch, Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), choking off the country’s fuel supplies, leaving the government in the capital of Bamako vulnerable to being overrun. The fuel blockade has been going on for weeks, with JNIM insurgents attacking and burning fuel trucks, kidnapping truck drivers, and denying fuel imports from Senegal and the Ivory Coast. As a result of the blockade, blackouts are spreading across the country, and citizens are forced to wait in line for hours to buy fuel for their vehicles. Mali, which is a landlocked nation of nearly 21 million people, received approximately 95 percent of its fuel from neighboring Senegal and the Ivory Coast. With the situation deteriorating, several Western countries, including the United States, Australia, Italy, and Germany, have advised their citizens to leave Mali immediately. JNIM is closely intertwined with the Macina Liberation Front (FLM) and was formed as a coalition between multiple groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine, and al-Mourabitoun.
JNIM is led by Iyad ag-Ghali and Amadou Kouffa, each of whom has influence over diverse constituencies of followers in the region. Other cities within Mali have already been subjected to blockades, such as the city of Kayes, with a population of 127,000, and Nioro du Sahel, and residents have been forbidden from leaving. In Farabougou, which fell to the FLM in August, women must now cover their heads, and secular music has been banned. Additionally, as JNIM began to shift its focus toward Bamako, it instituted sharia law on transportation companies entering and leaving the city, segregating men and women onto different vehicles and demanding that women cover their heads. However, since the fuel blockade, few have been able to enter or leave the city.
The fuel blockade is part of JNIM’s evolving strategy, which now features an economic warfare component. One of the insurgents’ objectives is to demonstrate to the Malian population that the current government is incapable of providing for its citizens or protecting them. Similar to what the Taliban did in Afghanistan and what Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) did in Syria before they both toppled their respective governments and seized control, JNIM has brokered local agreements with various sub-populations in Mali and has sought to build shadow governance structures that underpin its support and growing influence. In an effort to coup-proof the current junta, which is led by Assimi Goita and seized power in a military coup in 2021 (the second coup in two years), the government has turned to Russian mercenaries for protection, initially the Wagner Group and now its progeny, the Africa Corps. While JNIM has found success in taking control of rural villages and towns, it may be challenged to take and hold Bamako, and ultimately could decide against that move since it could stretch the jihadists’ bandwidth.
JNIM boasts approximately 6,000 fighters, spread across countries in the Sahel, including Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, and Ghana. Last week, JNIM claimed its first attack in Nigeria, Kwara State, where the terrorist group ambushed a Nigerian soldier. There are increasing concerns that if Mali falls, there could be a domino effect with other governments in West Africa. This would leave an entire region available to militant jihadists as a sanctuary and safe haven. Moreover, JNIM has an on-again, off-again rivalry with fighters belonging to the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP). Some analysts are sanguine that, despite the large swath of territory controlled by Islamist insurgents, these groups have little desire to attack the West and are more focused on gaining political power. Others, however, believe that groups like ISSP could begin plotting external operations from the Sahel against Western targets, evoking memories of Afghanistan in the lead-up to the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
Many experts and Sahel analysts believe that JNIM could be open to negotiating a power-sharing agreement with the current government. However, publicly, the junta has said it is not interested. The United States has stepped up intelligence sharing and cooperation with the government in Bamako, fearful that there could be a repeat of what occurred in Timbuktu more than a decade ago, when jihadists led by the notorious warlord Mokhtar Belmokhtar stormed into the city and sought to impose a strict form of Islamic governance. That takeover led to a French military deployment, Operation Serval. But today, Paris has far less influence, and there is no French military force to send in to fight the jihadists. If JNIM overruns the entirety of Mali, it would be yet another example, along with Afghanistan and Syria, of jihadists capturing nation-states. This trend should be highly concerning to Western policymakers and government officials. Additionally, Mali’s withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in January 2025, a regional bloc supporting the fight against jihadists, has increased Mali’s vulnerability against JNIM and its allies. The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) — a defense pact between Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso — has also shown little in adding stability to the region.
If the government in Mali does fall, it would be a blow to Russia, showcasing once again that Moscow’s military muscle is not a panacea for weak and fragile states. Indeed, collateral damage and civilian casualties inflicted by Russian mercenaries in the Sahel have, in many ways, helped to empower groups like JNIM, while undermining what legitimacy the junta regimes could claim. Africa Corps fighters have stayed close to their bases and military garrisons. In July 2024, a combination of Tuareg rebels and jihadist fighters killed as many as 84 Russian mercenaries and nearly 50 Malian soldiers in Tinzawaten, along Mali’s border with Algeria. In March 2022, Russian mercenaries were involved in the Moura massacre, where upwards of 500 local civilians were slaughtered.
JNIM insurgents are in a position of power because they are now dictating the tempo of operations on the ground and can choose whether or not to make a push to overrun Bamako. The current approach is incremental, but at any time JNIM could seek to accelerate its operations, leading to a lightning-quick offensive similar to what HTS engineered in Syria in December 2024 and what the Taliban executed in August 2021. In both of those cases, Western intelligence agencies were caught somewhat by surprise, and there was minimal effort made to stem the tide of the insurgents’ respective offensives.