Mali’s capital, Bamako, is encircled by al-Qaeda aligned jihadists. With western governments tolerating Islamist administrations in Afghanistan and Syria, the city’s Christians face an anxious future. 

What’s happening now?

In September, jihadists began attacking petrol and diesel tankers travelling into Bamako. Weeks of strangling the capital’s fuel supplies ─ which can only reach Bamako across vulnerable roads from Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire ─ have now shut down the economy. Schools are closed. Foreigners are leaving. Food prices are spiking. Daily life is becoming ever more difficult.

Western media are openly asking if Mali will become the next country to fall to jihadists – and there are parallels to the cascading collapse that allowed the Taliban to take Afghanistan, and the power vacuum that resulted in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seizing control of Syria.

Who are the jihadists?

The jihadists mounting an effective siege of Mali’s capital are Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM). Like HTS, which seized control of Syria in December, JNIM came out of a merger of a regional al-Qaeda organisation with local jihadist groups ─ in the case of Mali, the regional organisation was al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It was those jihadist groups who swept across the north of Mali in 2012, infamously capturing Timbuktu.

These groups mostly originated from the Tuareg rebellion that the region has known even before Mali’s independence in 1960. They sought to gain independence for the north (called the Azawad region) from Mali’s government in Bamako. Jihadist groups deliberately exploited ethnic grievances to radicalise Tuareg rebels, who then joined forces with Salafist groups in the late 2000s. Their alarming progress led to an international intervention spearheaded by French forces that pushed jihadist groups back, but the threat was never eradicated.

A United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in 2013, but ongoing violence and shifting politics in Mali ─ which experienced military coups in 2020 and again in 2021 ─ led in 2023 to the Malian government asking the UN mission to leave the country. The current administration has attempted to work with Russian mercenary groups to bring stability, but events in recent weeks suggest that controversial approach has also proved a failure. Like Afghanistan, Mali has now been left to fend for itself. Like Syria, the prospect of an authoritarian government collapsing would likely leave a dangerous vacuum.

What about Christians in Mali?

Mali is home to up to half a million Christians (perhaps around 2.5% of the population), located mainly in the south and significantly in and around Bamako itself. While Christians in northern Mali have faced attacks, as well as kidnappings, Christians have been able to live safely and worship freely in Bamako. But with the city now encircled, this freedom and comparative security is now under potential threat. 

In areas outside Bamako under JNIM control, jihadists are reportedly extorting locals in the name of zakat (traditional Islamic charity) and taking a cut of the lucrative gold mining industry. In August, when JNIM took control of Farabougou, they announced the formal imposition of sharia, banned all secular music and forced all women to wear head coverings. Farabougou is less than 100 miles from Bamako. It presents a chilling vision of what might happen to Bamako’s three million residents if the precarious ruling military junta collapses.

Are Mali’s jihadists inspired by Afghanistan and Syria?

Iyad Ag Ghaly, a former Tourag rebel leader who is now the emir of JNIM, used a rare public message in 2021 to congratulate the Taliban on their takeover of Afghanistan. He praised their “two decades of patience” and compared the retreat of western forces from Afghanistan to the withdrawal of French forces from Mali. At the time, JNIM was the one African jihadist group analysts thought capable of emulating the Taliban’s success in seizing control of a whole country and becoming its government. However, with the expulsion of UN peacekeepers in 2023 and their replacement by Russian mercenaries, that possibility moved a step a closer.

How will western governments react if jihadists seize control of Mali’s government?

Recent reports suggest the governments has now tacitly backed several local community power sharing agreements with JNIM, with the jihadist group taking effective control of some local areas, where they enforce shari’a and impose taxes on the local population. While more recently, it has been suggested the Malian government has been more directly negotiating with JNIM since September, which implies the possibility of a government power sharing arrangement with the jihadists. This would effectively mean that even if JNIM was unable to achieve complete control, it could nonetheless soon be part of the government of Mali.

The recognition by the US and UK governments of the new government of Syria ─ less than a year after jihadists seized control ─ will have emboldened jihadists such as JNIM to hope that any western opposition to them seizing control in Mali might be similarly short-term. 

JNIM’s leader Iyad Ag Ghaly is a former Malian diplomat, who like HTS’ leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Syria, will understand that his new government will need to speak the language of “tolerance” to gain acceptance by western governments. Even if what is happening on the ground tells a very different story...

Please pray for Christians in Mali at this time