Jihadist and Separatist Rebels Gain Ground in Mali

[Music] Hi, this is Hold your fire, a podcast by the International Crisis. I'm Richard Atwood. Today we'll talk about the wave of rebel attacks across Marley last week. Could you had us overthrow the military authorities and seize power? Armed groups launching a coordinated attack across Marley and killing the country's defence minister. They are from two groups. The twireg led as a wild liberation front known as the FLA and the al-Qaeda linked JNIM. They once fought each other but they are now fighting together against Marley's military junta. The offensive in Marley over the past week was the biggest yet by Jamiat Nusrat al-Islam al-Muslamin or Janim and a group that holds much of the countryside and has increasingly struck at cities in the Sahel. Millidents are mostly now withdrawn from urban areas but they hold the northern city of Qidal alongside twireg separatists who the army had ousted from Qidal about two and a half years ago. So what do the attacks mean for the military authorities that have ruled Marley since coups five years ago? What do they mean for the Russian paramilitaries? What used to be Wagner? Is now the Afrika Korb that support those military authorities? What to make of JNIM's renewed alliance with twireg separatists? Could JNIM capture more cities and can anything now blunt what appears to be its battlefield momentum? We're not going to do a lot of history in this episode. We've done what four five shows on Marley and the Sahel over the past few years. If people want more background to the coups, to the Jihadists, the twireg rebellions, please do check those out. Today we'll focus mostly on what happened over the past week and it's significant and I'm very happy to welcome back onto the show Ebrahim Yahya Ebrahim, crisis groups deputy Sahel direct to Ebrahim thanks for joining again. Thanks for having me. So Ebrahim could we start with what happened over the past week or so? Yes of course. So early morning on the 25th April that Jihadist group, Jamat Nusratil Islamol muslimine which is affiliated to Al Qaeda alongside another group, the Northern Malay separatist rebel movement which is the Azawah deliberation front. Together launched a coordinated attack targeting six major cities in Malay including two cities in the North Qidal which is the far north city near the border of Algeria and then Gau which is the most important city in the Northern Malay and these are the two cities where the two groups coordinated their actions. Then the Gidim attacked other two main cities in Central Malay which is Mopti and Sehbari and then also they attacked Bamako the capital city and Kati which is a garrison city located some dozen kilometers away from Bamako and where most of the generals lead in the country live with their families. So this is a significant role of force by Jnim and a serious escalation of the conflicts. It is a testimony of a level of organizations and sophistication that we have seen some of it in the past but not in the magnitude that we saw at this time. And they killed what at least the Defence Minister maybe some other officials in Kati this garrison city just like Bamako that you talked about. Yes so they attacked the house of the Minister of Defence Sahjokamara who is the number two of the regime and they killed him with a number of his family members and then other people from the neighbourhoods in fact they explored it a vehicle full of explosives near the house of the minister killing him and at the same time also they engaged in shooting and then fire inside the garrison of Kati which they succeeded in infiltrating and engaging the military in it shoot out inside the garrison. And this was as you say a display of strength coordinated attacks on a different scale to what we've seen before so on cities that are miles apart I think it's about one and a half thousand kilometers between Bamako and Kidal up in the far north so a scale of coordinated attack that's new. Yes I think it is unprecedented in its magnitude even if you can say that the modest operandi is quite well known this ability to coordinate simultaneous attack on multiple cities or even the tactic that they used are not new in themselves. Last year for example in July geniems simultaneously attacked seven locations including the city of kai and niru disayel nionu and mfore other cities or significant towns in the country they did also something similar in urkina faaso in May of 2025 where they attacked several cities at once including jibu, soli, sub se, yondi etc. And the goal I think is to overwhelm the military and distract any reinforcement that may come whether from the air or from the ground. If you have multiple attacks at the same time I thought of that in different locations sometimes hundreds of even a thousand kilometers apart it is very difficult to coordinate your response while the attacks were happening. And even when you say attack I mean concretely when you talked about the suicide bomber the vehicle laden with explosives that went into the defense minister's house but in other attacks what it's fighters on on motorbikes and pickup trucks what concretely does a genie m attack on a city look like and does it very much between places. So Richard what we see is that they use a combination of hint and run tactics but also conventional warfare. For example if you take the case of bama ko and even kati the militant used what they call the in gimazyu operation where they use you know suicid vehicles to breach highly secure locations while at the same time a relatively small group of of fighters take advantage of the moment of shock that the explosion creates to occupy and inflict maximum damage under enemies and this is exactly the tactic that they used against the house of the minister of of of defense as explained but in other cases for example in the city of kidal gau mocti and sebaray so in the northern and central areas the attacks took the form of conventional warfare with militants coming in great numbers asserting military barracks with motorcycles heavy weapons you know and even drones and actually in recent years genie m has increasingly grown savi in in drone warfare they have learned to adapt low cost commercial drones and use them both for surveillance and air strike and this has given them quite a bit of advantage. I mean whether you we talk about the conventional warfare or the in gimazyu tactics genie benefited from an element of surprise and this is really one of the strengths of the jihadist it's this ability to stay one step ahead of the state and security forces and oftentimes leaving security forces in a reactive posture and constantly struggling to catch up and unfortunately this is really what we have seen in the past and what we saw a couple of days back and so in the capital Bamako militants genie have been besieging or at least a partial siege on the city for some time obstructing fuel getting into the city which is really kind of a period gridlock the city led to these massive fuel shortages and shortages of power because a lot of the powers generated from fuel and I think the Marley and army and their Russian backers had been able to get some fuel into Bamako but this was something different I mean was it militants roaming different areas or what did the attack on Bamako look like? So the attack on Bamako was mainly centered around the international airport and this is the same international airport that they attacked in September of 2024 and this time again they attacked the same airports area but they were also reports about genie fighters going around certain neighborhoods in the suburb of Bamako and those rumors actually persisted up until yesterday people were saying that there were seen armed people and motorcycles in some of the suburbs and you could imagine how psychologically disturbing this is for inhabitants of Bamako really to wake up and see fighters on motorcycles are just roaming around actually you have one of the videos that we saw people just seated there are watching genie circulating on in the middle of a city and they say that is this genie really in the morning on daylight it was a shock for everybody and so that was what a few days ago now so we can come to Kidal the northern city that they've recaptured from the army we can come to that in a moment but the other cities violence has now subsided militants have withdrawn again okay so in the Bamako and the Kati they were clearly defeated they are still roaming around some of the suburbs but militarily they were not able to take over neither Kati or I mean the airports of Bama Kok and the authoric to say that now they have launched sweeping operations to try to clear out all this. I think on Monday, even in people reported that there were some heavy gunfire and detonations in some of the suburb of Bamakul. With regard to the central cities, Mopti and Seyvare, Mopti was quite overtaken by the jihadists. There were images of them in the office of the governor hanging out during Kinti. It was clear that in that city they were able to take control at Kinti temporarily. In Seyvare, it was different. They took control over most of the city at some point, but there were some military barracks that resisted. In particular, the military barracks where the airports is located and where the Russians also are located. So the Russians and the Malin army together fought back and they were able to sustain their position. In the end, toward the evening the jihadists withdraw from Bof Seyvare and Mopti. Now in Gau, here also the situation looked more like Seyvare where they were able to enter the city to take control of certain neighborhoods. But the men military position was held and sustained by the Malin army and the Russian allies. In the end, the jihadists were forced to withdraw from the city as well. And so Kedal, then this city in the north, the far north that you mentioned, militant jihadists and Twareg rebels united to take back the city from the army and the Russians and in Kedal they held the city. So yes, I mean in Kedal, genema the separatists have taken full control of the city. They negotiated a deal with the Malin army and the Russian allies of the Afrika Korps were in the city and they had a deal that allowed basically the Russians and some of the Malin forces to withdraw and to leave the town. Any parade I heard that Tatyel was broken by Algeria? Was that right or was that just rumours? Those were the rumors that were circulating around. I don't think that neither that Algerians nor the Malins or even the insurgent groups have confirmed that information yet. But it is true that now they have full control over the city of Kedal and this was two and half years after they lost control over it. Yeah, I remember that was a big victory. The Russians and the military proclaimed it as a big victory. But some in Kedal now, I mean how much is it the Twareg separatists, the FLA that are holding power or how much is it the genema? I mean is there any sign yet of genema imposing the evolution of the Islamic law in the city or is it just sort of too early to tell? Yeah, it is too early to tell. I think right now people are very festive in particularly those who took over the FLA and then the genema. I think it is a moment of return for many people who were forced out of the city when it was taken over by the Malin army and the Russians back in November of 2023. At that time, many people were forced to live in the secret few different places in Mauritania, in Algeria, near the Algerian border, etc. So now I think a lot of the people are trying to come back while others who have supported the government and the the derashions when they took over are now I think either living the city or really playing very low key. We haven't yet seen any outcomes at this moment to try to impose new codes, etc. I mean this is not a place where we will see massive change even if a genema decides to go for the implementation of it is a version of the Sharia law. For a long time people have cooperated and in Imkidal it is around in local communities have negotiated with genema that the access to Syria but they will implement it in their own way meaning that they will have their local academy, the local Islamic judges handle matters and then decide what is implemented and what is not. And this is not going to significantly change the way people live in those areas. And Ibrahim when the Tauric separatists were routed from Qidal by the army and the Russian AfrikaKor, the Russian power militaries in 2023. Since then we have wondered whether they might form an alliance with Genema, in Genema leader Iad Agali, we have talked about him a lot on the show before, he is a former Tauric rebel who I think in the 2000s gradually appears to have turned towards the Islamic militancy, jihadism. But what the last time Tauric separatists aligned with jihadists didn't work out so well for them. So we went back in 2012 when they sort of united to capture northern towns and cities but then jihadists turned on the Tauric and seized control until they were ousted by French forces. So you have spoken to Tauric leaders, the leaders of the FLA, how do you think they see the potential risks and benefits? Yes, so Richard the relationship between the jihadists and the separatists is a complex one. We have separate objectives in an actual just the separatistic independence or at least large autonomy of what they call the Azawa which is a territory of northern Mali, including the region of Kedal, Gau and Tumbuktu. On the other hand the jihadists seek to establish Sharia not only in the northern regions but in the entire country, the Sahel region and even beyond. The two have common enemies which is the Malian army and it is allies the Russians at this moment. In the north in particular jihadists and separatists often come from the same community, share the same territory and oftentimes they have collaborated in fighting, in intelligence, sharing, etc. It is a relationship that is marked by ups and downs, sometimes collaboration, sometimes confrontation. As you mentioned the best example of that is 2012 when the insubgesis started and the collaborative to the control of the main cities in the north but after the Malian army withdrew rivalry between them quickly exacerbated leading to confrontation with the jihadists expelled in the separatist rebel groups. Now since the Malian army defeated both of them in Kedal as we mentioned in November 2023 efforts to try to bring the two to form an alliance have been underway led by some of the community leaders of the region. Those efforts did not succeed until we saw them now. And the reason why the separatists rebel required that GD broke ties with Al-Qaeda and become a local movement so that they could ally with them. And the jihadists asked the separatists to accept Shariah and to abandon the separatist claim. And even last December I met with one of the leaders of the movement who told me that negotiations for an alliance started because neither sides accepted to make the compromise necessary for the order to accept the alliance. So now the alliance this weekend to attack together Kedal and Gau took many by surprise, and myself. So it is so far and clear whether this is just an opportunistic deal to drive out a common enemy or whether there is an actual deal including on how to share power in Kedal after all this settle down. So that we don't know. And from what I understand it doesn't appear either that the separatists have given up their independent struggle, nor that Jinnim has broken with Al-Qaeda, right? They appear to have glossed over those demands they each made of each other to the extent that we know. But Ebron, what about Jinnim's goals now? What does this display of military power tell us about what they're trying to do? I remember last time we talked about them on the shows when they started blockading or stopping fuel going into Bamako. And the sense then was that they were aiming to pressure the military authorities trying to weaken the regime, maybe giving themselves more space to consolidate control in rural areas and move further south. More than they were actually sort of trying to seize the capital or overthrow the military authorities. But it seems plausible at least that militants maybe wanted to hold some of the other cities, at least those in the north and the center. To the extent we know, do you think their goals have changed? So Richard, we don't know. I mean Jinnim's ultimate objective behind this recent escalation of urban attacks still remain unclear, I think, to all of us. Even if we can say that it signals the group's ambition to reshape the broader political sphere that we can say, but Jinnim has never clarified what seeks to achieve here. But the group's leadership has consistently emphasized two core goals. The one is the withdrawal of foreign forces and the second is the establishment of Sharia. They have been constant about those two goals. Sometimes they employ the general rhetoric of Al Qaeda, the Eucodan narrative about the Caliphate or even Liberating Jerusalem, etc. But when they speak about what they try to achieve in the Sahel, those two goals are the ones that they put forward. Yes. there is still significant ambiguity about where and how a genome intends to pursue those goals. And at the very least, we could say that first, it is clear that they are trying to force some concessions. I think they use pressure on urban centers to extract concessions from state authorities, as you mentioned. We can see that the group stepped up all these accounts on towns and cities at a time when government forces actually across the Sahel waged an unprecedented offensive in in in genomes rural strongholds. From 2022, we saw government forces pushing really into some of the areas that they haven't been before controlled by by genium. And this genium to start to raise alarms about executions, a lot of humanitarian problems. So perhaps the group is exerting this pressure on cities, calculating that sustained pressure on urban areas would force state authorities to scale back those military operations in its rural strongholds. So that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that they are trying to induce a regime change. And the genium has made it clear that they want to see a regime change in Bamako, but also in the two other countries. They have been calling on Sahel and elite to mobilize against the military regime, even sometimes calling on student union, on labor union to mobilize against these regimes that are killing women, children, and elderly people as you know they frame it. And really pushing hard to to to to mobilize that discontent against the regime. Not for them to take over, but for the Malian elites, certainly close to them to to do it. But even in that case, usually the emphasize that whomever takes over will have to establish Sharia rule. Now the third way you could look at it is that there might be a attempt to take over themselves. I think we cannot rule that out completely. We have insight into some of the internal debates in which you hear that younger commanders who come mainly from the Flanau communities are pushing for more aggressive actions, partly in a response to violence against rural communities, pushing for taking over the cities. But more senior figures, especially those who have experienced you know the setback of 2012, when they took over Kidal Dau and Tom Buktu and which ultimately triggered a French military operations, that pushed them out and they really decimated quite a bit of of of their forces. And now this senior figures cushion against premature escalation that could trigger external intervention and then history will repeat itself. And this more senior groups are pushing rather for a long term strategy of attrition. They could see that if they sustain this pressure on the city, they will not have to actually export themselves to that danger. The food will come right to them. I think also this attempted takeover is partially influenced by development in Afghanistan and Syria, which have reinforced the perception that jihadist movement can seize power under certain conditions and maintain it, as long as you could provide guarantees to the international community that you will not pose a problem to the interests. But still also I think it is important to emphasize that there are key differences between genome and HTS or even the Taliban. You know, genome has no experience governing urban areas. Genium is expensive. It operates across multiple countries rather than with a single national framework as opposed to the Taliban or HTS. And ebrem, as you say, genium is sort of expensive and that it's not clear it wants to control Marley within existing borders, for example, or at least they don't, as you say, define exactly what kind of geographic area they're fighting for. But it's plausible to see that some of what they want could be achieved, maybe even in talks, right? I mean, getting foreign forces out at the moment in Marley, it's just the russian, so you can imagine that Marley and elites could get together and agree on that. And maybe in return militants pledged that the areas they control wouldn't be used to host foreign militants or to be used for sort of planning foreign operations. You can imagine that that sort of transnational element of their demands. There's probably ways of dealing with that. But the demand for their version of sharia is sort of more complicated. And as you say, in the north communities of often sort of works out compromises involving local religious figures. But in the south of Marley, traditions are different. But China has a big Christian community. I mean, that demand for this quite strict variant of sharia, that demand is really kind of an obstacle to genium getting what it wants or to anyone who sort of envisages reaching some sort of compromise with genium. Yeah, definitely. And this has been one of the, as you know, Richard at Crustus Group, we have been pushing for this idea of dialogue between Marley and the genium in particular for years now. I think I've been among one of the leading voice in calling for that dialogue. And we have identified those obstacles, including what you highlight right now about the acceptance of the sharia rule across Marley. This has been one of the issues that from the beginning has really discouraged elites from accepting the idea of dialogue with genium. Now, there are others, I'm including the groups link to transnational networks, reluctance by also human rights groups, etc. One one, what was the measure obstacle was also the belief by the Marley and government that they will only dialogue from a position of power. If they have the upper hand on the military ground and then they could impose a deal on genium. And actually, this is one major thing that they continued to emphasize even to us, even recently. Even at the time when the blocade on Bamako, on the fuel in Bamako was at its worst moment, the Prime Minister was saying that we cannot negotiate with a knife on our thoughts. Henten to the fact that we have to rebalance the power then we can negotiate. Which in some ways is understandable. But at the moment, the opposite seems to be true as it was certainly the case in Afghanistan, for example, that the longer this goes on, the more the balance shifts in favor of the rebels, in this case in favor of genium. It is a mistake actually because they said it in 2017 when people actually during a national conference people advocated for dialogue. And then they said the same thing all along, 2019, 2023, etc. Up until 2025, they are saying the same thing. And you could imagine that the deal that they would have gotten would have been much much better than what they could expect today, right? When the situation is really at its worst. It's also not at all clear with militants, presumably, the genium leadership feels that time is now on its side. So it's not clear that it is ready to enter talks or it would entertain any sort of compromise, certainly not with the military authorities. Exactly. I mean, I think at this moment, actually, both of them are just speaking the language of war, rather than the language of peace, right? And it is hard to see how the switch for an negotiated settlement will come. Let us not. No, let us be clear that dialogue has happened, even with the military, and even recently, but those are more torsional to liberate prisoners, even to achieve a ceasefire, temporary ceasefire in one place. For example, in Mali, last year, they achieved a ceasefire concerning one region, the region of Bandhya Gara. And that ceasefire has holds up until today, almost a year since the discussion started. But those are what we can call dialogue for conflict management rather than conflict resolution, trying to manage conflict, rather than trying to find a political solution to it. And finding a political solution still, I think there is a lot of resistance as you mentioned on the side of the military, but also, in particular, at this moment of strength for a genome, I think, on the side of genome. If there is any chance that this could happen is perhaps with some of the elites that you mentioned, there are elites in Mali, particularly from the opposition, some of them are in exile, who are advocating for dialogue with genome, including the idea of pushing out the foreign forces speaking of the Russians. So that may be possible, but you cannot see how this could operate as long as the military are in power. And I guess these coordinated attacks sort of across six cities, as you say, the capital and caddy in the south, two cities in the center, two in Mali's north, this suggests that Genime is very much centrally directed. I mean, do we know where Iad Agali, the leader is, and sort of the role that he and the leadership are playing as opposed to mid-level commanders and others that are sort of dispersed across this big area. So Iad is the head of the Masal Shushura, which is the consultative council of Genime, which is the highest authority that makes most of the important decisions within the movement, [BLANK_AUDIO] And then, a genomics, a quite decentralized movement, it is divided into multiple what they're called Wilaya, which is regions. So you have the regions of Gao, of Kiddal, of Thumbuktu, and then you have Wulaiet, Burkina, and then other Wulaiets. And the Wulaiet are also subdivided into Mantekats. And then the Mantekats are subdivided also into Markas, which is camps or actual sites where they are located. And each level has priority in terms of making decisions concerning it is own zone. But all this is coordinated by the Mazar-sir Shura. And the Mazar-sir Shura often makes the big decisions. For example, the decision to impose a blocade on Bamako was made by the Mazar-sir Shura. I am sure the decision to conduct those series of attacks on cities in Mali was made by the Mazar-sir Shura. These are decisions that the top level could make. Iyad himself is believed to be located somewhere in northern Kiddal. We have seen him participated in meetings in different places, though, including along the border of Mauritania, for example, but within the Mali and territory. In recent appearance of Iyad, if I can call it that, is doing this operation, is on Saturday, actually. There was a video that was circulated on social media that do that show Iyad's face, but show a screen and images from a drone that is filming the operation's life. And in the background, Iyad's voice and Al-Ghaba Sarinthallah, who is the leader of FLA, both are discussing about the operations. As if they were following the operation's life from a drone footage. So you could imagine that they are together and perhaps somewhere in northern Kiddal. And I guess, Aghali and Al-Ghaba Sarinth know each other well, given Aghali's ties to Kiddal and to our separatist struggle before his turn to Islamist militancy. Oh, more than that. I mean, they have family ties. So I met with Al-Ghaba Sarinthallah in Kiddal, actually, in 2019. He is from the ruling family in Kiddal. And at that time, the French were pushing Al-Ghaba Sarinth to make his group to break ties with Gneme, of the Jihadists in general. And he told me, he said, look, they are pushing me to go to war with my brothers, members of my community. And he said, it is true that I am not with them. We don't have the same objectives. But we are not at war with one another. Our groups oftentimes meet in different places in the places that we occupy, but we don't confront one another. And I have nothing to gain from side in with a foreign actor to fight people from my community. And one day, those foreign actors will leave us with the problem that they have pushed us to create. So he said, I am not going to follow those pressures. And it is known that Jihad has actually family relations with the ruling family in Kiddal and Gnabbas as family. Whereas the Twara rebels, what is now the FLA, their primarily Twarax, the Gneme has diversified its recruitment. I don't know how popular or the road in roads is being able to make in southern Mali, but it has recruited a lot of pearl or fulani, the group that you mentioned before. Yes. So Gneme continued to receive significant support even in the north. The group has benefited from the Malian authorities tech over of Kiddal. Actually, some fighters from the Separatist movement joined Gneme at some point after the tech over of Kiddal. But still, the groups draw most of its fighters among the nomadic fulani community, particularly in central Mali, in north and eastern Burkina Paso, and western Niger. It is clear also that in the recent year, it has made significant headways in southern Mali. In areas where you still have some nomadic fulani, but they are not the majority there. But they were able, at least, to recruit among those who are present in those areas, but also to co-op communities outside the Fulani, including the Bambara, the Senuful, in southern Mali, and even the Suninchi. But their ability to recruit from among those communities is still limited, even if Gneme is trying to put some of the people from those communities in a position of leadership, so that they could portray ethnic diversity within the movement. So the most important spokesperson of Gneme today in southern Mali in particular, who has become very famous, is Vinadiyara. And he has been the one that has been the most outspoken conveying the message of the group. And this, you know, portray the group as a multiethnic and a multilongol. And this wave of attacks, especially the attacks in Katty and Bamako, obviously a big blow to the military authorities, the defense minister, maybe some others killed military leader, a semi-goiter, even vanished for a few days after the attacks. And this is obviously a blow to their prestige, a major failure to provide security, something that they'd promised to do better than the civilian authorities that they overthrew, a big deal to Tommalians. But could it impact the sort of cohesion within the military authorities? Will there be jostling among the military leaders a sort of blame game? Yeah, this is perhaps the most important damage. I think the attacks at the heart of power in Katty has clearly fragilized the military regime and created quite a bit of uncertainty at the highest level of the state. The death of a defense minister, Sadio Kamara, is a major blow to the regime. He is a central figure. He's the architect of the effort to rebuild the Malian army. And he is a key actor indeed, rapprochement with Russia. He's there sent really a shock wave across the board, actually. There is another pillar of the regime, General Maudubokone, who is one of the five in charge of the country. He is the head of intelligence service, and he was seriously injured in the attacks and his condition remains uncertain. You mentioned Asimil Gweta. He disappeared for three days following the attacks and hadn't appeared in public until yesterday. Last night, actually, he gave an address to the nation in which he reshrewed the Malian that the situation was under control. But during those days where he disappeared, we had the wildest rumor circulating on social media, some claim that he is captured by regime others that he might be injured and others that he is deposed by other military officers. Since he appeared in public, some of those rumors have calmed down now. But nonetheless, the crisis has shaken the regime to excore and clearly exposed the availability of security apparatus. Another important point to reach is that even if the regime survives, and it looks like it will survive, but it will send in the future, right? But the loss of Qidal will still remain another blow to the regime. The conquering Qidal was perhaps the most important achievement since the camp hour. It was a symbol of the strangeness of the army, the narrative that was at the backbone of the sovereignist approach that the regime have adopted. So losing it, I think, is a major setback. So probably try to take it back, you know? It is possible. I would doubt that this would be the priority. I mean, now they are dealing with a genealogy that is lurking around the capital city and imposing Hedy Blockies. I think the most priority now is to try to secure at the capital city and prevent another major blow like this to happen to the capital city or to the Qati area. And what's the Russian response being? I mean, this is also a belong to Russia's reputation, its ability to be a reliable security partner. So this is a humiliation for them as well. It is. It is a major setback for the Russians. But you have to enhance it a little bit. I think also if it weren't for the Russians, the damage would have been worse. They lost Kidal, of course, and they got out of it as we mentioned, humiliated. But they maintain control over Gau, over Sehvari, and over Bamakwan Kati. And I think this could also be credited to them as an achievement. But overall, you are right to mention that it is bad for their image. Even the Russians come in with this business model to the African countries saying that look, we can help you manage the most ferocious insurgents. And they have had some success in Central Africa Republic. They have had some success in Mali. But now, the case of Mali, and this is for the second time, that they are suffering major setbacks. Two years ago, they suffered a heavy blow in Tizawat and in Northern Mali. At the end of the same groups. And now, a second one. So yes, it is clear that this is not good for the image. This is not good. good for the business model and this lead others to start thinking again when consider interactions to help them with their insurgencies. And how do you think the other military authorities in the Sahel that are part of this alliance with the Malian authorities, Lallionst, is it that the Sahelian, the AES, so the authorities in Bakina, in Niger. I mean in Bakina it seemed that the genium for a while was really focusing on Bakina Faso, sort of a pit of shifted resources, manpower back into Mali. But how do you think the Bakina and Niger authorities see this latest setback their partners in Mali have suffered, have they reacted? Yeah, so the authorities in Niger and Burkina are watching this very closely. As they are facing a similar escalation, what happened in Mali this last weekend is just one episode. In a trend that we have seen developing across all those three countries and that we could you know identify into three main points. The first one is that it includes attack on urban areas concerned all three countries. So that's true in Niger as well. I mean, Bakina and Mali have both seen sort of cities around there that are attacked with increasing frequency but that's also true in Niger. So Nigerian cities are faced with the same problems. It is one small place like between the river of Niger and the border of Burkina Faso, there are a string of like secondary cities not measure urban areas but secondary cities that have been targeted by by Jeanine over the past few years. So we have seen this attack against urban areas in all three countries escalating just to give you a figure that Richard since 2022 attacks by Jeanine on urban areas and all those three countries have more than tripled. A second, Jeanine has been escalating economic pressure actually in the same way as we saw in Mali even if the magnitude is less in Burkina Faso for example since 2022 some 40 localities are put under siege by Jeanine and in Niger you have a few localities. Some of them are small rural areas some are more significant and the third is that Jeanine has exerted you know political pressure on all of them as I mentioned about Jeanine trying to mobilize elites in Mali you know to raise up against the military regime. They are also trying similar things in Burkina but also in Niger when they speak about on those issues they speak on about all the three countries not Mali alone. An apron the West African coastal countries which have had these sort of very fraught relations with the Sahel countries since the military take over some of the coastal countries Benin I think in particular there's been sort of militants spillover militant attacks in the in the north who talks a lot about that on the show before but even beyond that very strained relations the three Sahel countries pulled out of ECUAS. There had been some signs maybe of tentative diplomacy named it trying to repair relations between the coastal countries and at least some of the Sahel capitals do you think these attacks over the last week will harm those efforts or do you think that you know despite all the problems at least some capitals of coastal countries see an interest in trying to increase at least sort of military communication or communication over security. But I think that they should actually because you know you are right you know we have all this is happening at a moment where the region is fragmented you know last year the three AES countries withdrew from the economic community of West Africa ECUAS effectively dividing the West Africa region into two blocks now the AES block which is composed of the three countries Mali Nijar Burkina Faso and then ECUAS which is now 12 countries that withdrawal created a problem in terms of managing the insecurity because in the past we used to have you know a security cooperation intelligence sharing oftentimes cross-border operations between coastal countries and Sahel countries but the current tensions between the Sahel countries and their coastal neighbors have undermined those security cooperation mechanisms. So Nijar Burkina Faso and Nijar Burkina Faso and Nijar Burkina Faso withdrew from the MNGTF the initiative that managed the the conflict in the lecture basin area you know they they also stopped collaborating with the ACRA initiative which is the initiative put forward actually to help both coastal countries and Sahel countries to manage the problem but there are other mechanisms within ECUAS in the past for intense sharing and things of those kind that are now completely crippled because of this diplomatic tensions between Sahel countries and the coastal neighbors and it is impossible to see how Sahel countries other coastal countries could manage the security situation if they do not collaborate with one another. So I believe that they need to work beyond the current diplomatic rift between them and start at least collaborating on the security basis if the political ones is difficult to settle and the coastal countries have interest in doing that because I'm sure they don't want to wake up the next day and find that they have to deal with you know as you had discovered them in one of those Sahel countries that would be the worst nightmare. And Ibrahim just to end in Marley in particular so first of all you had all these you know the tax on cities in Burkina the tax on several Marley and cities you had the partial blockade of Bamako and now these the tax you know the biggest operation yet from from the militants and certainly since they seized their north in 2012 so what's your sense it seems unlikely there's going to be another sort of European lead or a French lead intervention if militants do capture large areas of the north that seems unlikely and they do seem to be growing in strength and the Marley and authorities seem to be you know on very shaky ground so where's your sense of where it's going? This is the hardest question that you asked Farichard the pessimistic side of me you know look at it and say that this is just doesn't look good for the Sahel countries they manage it you know for you know a few years a few months a few years but as long as there is not a you know a ground break and change I mean you could see that it is there will be unable to sustain it you know focusing on a militarized solution you have tried this really for what for ten years now with the help of wasn't was some powers it didn't work now with the help of Russians it didn't work and even if the you could you could see the Westerners wasn't coming I don't believe that they will come with the same strength as we see them coming in the past if they come and all given the situation of the world so I think it remains choice for the Sahel countries to shift back and start looking for opportunity to engage in dialogue and save what they could save before it is too late. Abraham thanks for coming up. Thank you Richard. Hold your fire is a production of the International Crisis Group and Richard Outwood thanks to our producers Kevin Murphy, Martin Dixie Murphy, Hagar Schauban thanks of course as ever to all of you our listeners please do get in touch podcast at crisisgroup.org if you have any questions or suggestions if you'd like the show leave us a nice rating if you get your podcasts and I very much hope that you'll tune in again next week.