How Al-Qaeda’s shoot became one of the deadliest militant groups in Africa

Al-Qaeda’s partner Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam Wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is the main group behind the jump of belligerent jihadist attacks that move in several West African countries, especially Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

On July 1, the group stated that it had carried out a large coordinated attack on seven Military places in West Mali, including near the borders with Senegal and Mauritania.

There is increasing concern about the impact that JNIM can have on the stability of the region.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have struggled to redeem the violence – and this is one of the factors that has contributed to several military coups in the three Sahel countries in the last five years.

But like the civil governments they replaced, the junta at first glance cannot stop the growing threat of jihadist, especially JNIM.

JNIM has become one of the most deadly jihadist groups in Africa in a few years.

It was formed in Mali in 2017 as a coalition of five jihadist belligerent groups:

• Ansar your
• Katibat makina
• Al-murabitun
• Ansar al-Vivalam
• Al -Qaeda’s Sahara Branch in Islamic Maghreb

These groups began cooperating after the French military repelled several jihadist and separatist organizations that operated in North Mali in 2012. In the end, group leaders gathered to create JNIM.

In recent years, they have expanded geographically, creating new areas of work.

JNIM is led by IYAD AG Ghali, a former Malian diplomat belonging to the ethnic group of Tuareg. He was at the forefront of Tuareg’s uprising against the Malian government in 2012, which seeks to create an independent state for the Tuareg people called Azavad. Deputy Lider Amadu Kufa is from the Fulani community.

Analysts believe the central management helps to run the local branches that work in the Sahel region in West Africa.

Although it is difficult to know exactly how many fighters there are in the ranks of JNIM or how many recently they have been hired, experts suggest that there may be several thousand – mostly young men and boys who have no other economic opportunities in one of the most overwhelming regions in the world.

The group rejects the authority of the Sahel governments, striving to impose its strict interpretation of Islam and Sharia in the areas in which it works.

Analysts say that in some areas it is known that JNIM imposes strict dress -codes, applies prohibitions against music and smoking, orders men to grow beards and prevent women from being in public spaces.

This version of Islam may contradict religion practiced by local communities, says Ivan Gichaua, a senior researcher at the International Center for Conflict in Bonn.

“These practices are obviously coping with established practices and they are certainly not very popular,” he says.

“But whether it is attractive or not, it also depends on what the state is able to deliver and has a lot of disappointment with what the state has been doing in recent years.”

The disappointment of the secular justice system can make the introduction of Sharia’s courts attractive to some.

After starting in Central and North Mali, JNIM quickly expanded its range. While his fortresses are in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, Jnim also carried out attacks in Benin, and at one point Ivory.

He is now working throughout Mali and 11 of the 13 Burkina Faso regions, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), an organization of civil society.

In the last year, Burkina Faso has become the epicenter of the group’s activities – mainly the northern and eastern border areas. This is partly due to divisions and defects in the military in the country, as well as how deep the fighters in local communities are being built, according to Beverly Purging, a senior risk analyst to control the consulting company for security.

“JNIM has the ability to incorporate local communities or be able to use local complaints as a means of recruiting or winning sympathy for their cause,” she told the BBC.

In recent months, violent incidents have turned to Burkina Faso to the previously unprecedented levels, according to the analysis of the Jihadist media team of BBC Monitoring. Large attacks have also been made in Mali, Niger and Benin.

In the first half of 2025, JNIM said he had carried out more than 280 attacks in Burkina Faso – doubled the number for the same period in 2024, according to data confirmed by the BBC.

The group claims to have killed almost 1,000 people in Sahel since April, most of them members of security forces or militias fight with government forces, according to BBC monitoring data.

Almost 800 of them were only in Burkina Faso. The victims in Mali were the next highest (117) and Benin (74).

“The frequency of attacks in June is just unheard of so far,” says G -n Gichawa. “They have really strengthened their activities in recent weeks.”

Soldiers use different tactics designed to cause maximum interruptions, explains the Ochieng.

“They plant IED (improvised explosive devices) on key roads and have long -distance opportunities.

“They (also) are aimed at security forces in military bases, so many of their weapons come from this. They also attacked civilians – in cases where communities are perceived as cooperation with the government.”

Starlink – a company owned by Elon Musk, which provides internet through satellites – is also operated by groups such as JNIM to improve their capabilities, according to a recent GI -TOC report.

The company provides high -speed Internet where regular mobile networks are inaccessible or unreliable.

Starlink’s belligerent groups are smuggling in the country along established smuggled routes, G-toch says.

“Starlink has made it much easier to plan (military groups) to plan and attack, to share intelligence, to hire members, to make financial transactions and to maintain contacts with their commanders even during an active conflict,” GI-Toc analyzer told BBC’s Focus on Africa.

BBC contacted Starlink for comment.

The group has numerous sources of income.

At one time in Mali, the funds were raised by abducting foreigners for ransom, but few remain in the country because of the deteriorating security situation.

The storage of livestock has now become a major source of income, according to an analyst at GI-TOC. They did not want to be named as this could risk their safety in Mali.

“Mali is a great exporter of cattle, so it’s easy to steal animals and sell them,” the analyst said.

A Gi-Toc study shows that in just one year in one Mali area, JNIM has won $ 770,000 (£ 570,000) of livestock. Based on this figure, JNIM can earn millions of dollars from cattle theft.

JNIM also imposes different taxes, according to experts.

“They tax gold, but mainly taxing everything that goes through their territory, whether it is listed goods or illegal goods,” says GI-TOC.

“There may be a tax in which JNIM tells citizens that they have to pay in exchange for protection.”

It is also known that fighters create blockades that people have to pay to leave and enter the area, according to the Ochieng.

The armed forces of France have been on Earth, supporting the Mali government for almost a decade – with over 4,000 troops located in the Sahel region groups, which continued to form JNIM, as well as the Islamic State in the larger Sahara.

While they had some success in 2013 and 2014, restoring a territory of fighters and killing several senior commanders, this did not stop the growth of JNIM after it was formed.

“Efforts to counteract the rebels have failed so far because of this idea that JNIM can be defeated military, but only through negotiations will the group end,” the GI-Toc analyst suggested.

In 2014, the Saylian countries united to form the special G5 Sahel group, a 5000-strong group of international troops. However, over the last few years, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdrew, undermining the work group’s ability to deal with the rebels.

Minusma, UN-Makar peacekeeping forces and not to be an effort to combat the uprising-they were also in Mali for a decade to support the efforts, but it left the country at the end of 2024.

Military coups were carried out in Mali in 2020 and 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023.

Poor governance in the military junctions in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger subsequently allowed militant groups such as JNIM to thrive, according to analysts.

These junctions were quick to tell French troops to leave, replacing them with Russian support and joint force formed by the three Sahlia countries.

Although the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has fully withdrawn its troops from Mali, Africa Corps, a paramilitary group controlled by the Kremlin will remain in force.

In Burkina Faso, the so -called “volunteer” army, launched in 2020 before the military absorption, is a strategy that is used to combat fighters. Junta leader Ibrahim Traore said he wanted to hire 50,000 fighters.

But experts say that many of these volunteers have been accumulated. Inadequate training means that they often suffer heavy casualties. They are also often a goal for JNIM attacks.

The military junctions in Burkina Faso and Mali are also accused by organizations of human rights for having committed atrocities against civilians, especially ethnic Fulany. The human rights group claims that the government often connects the Fulans community to Islamist armed groups, which supports peace efforts.

Between January 2024 and March 2025, the military government and their Russian allies were responsible for 1486 civilian victims in Mali, according to GI-TOC.

This extreme violence against civilian anger breeds to the government, nourishing the more junction of JNIM.