‘The JNIM is not seeking to march on Bamako immediately. Instead, it is tightening the noose around the regime and seeking to weaken the economy by exacerbating shortages in the hope of discrediting the authorities in power,’ Dr Bakary Sambe explains in this interview. By methodically targeting gold and lithium mines, increasing the number of kidnappings of foreign engineers, setting fire to convoys on the Bamako-Dakar corridor and imposing a fuel blockade from Senegal and Mauritania, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group has changed its paradigm: it is an ‘economic jihad’ on an unprecedented scale that aims to implode Mali from within rather than conquer it militarily. Dr Bakary Sambe, president of the Timbuktu Institute and specialist in West African jihadist dynamics, demonstrates this strategy of suffocation and raises the alarm. Between logistical sabotage, colossal ransoms and community roots, the risk is no longer a hypothetical invasion but rapid cross-border contagion that could transform Senegambia and Mauritania into weak links in regional destabilisation. In this interview with Sud Quotiden, Dr Bakary Sambe, one of the leading specialists on transnational networks in the Sahel and West Africa, discusses the regional security situation in the context of the JNIM offensive in Mali and the resurgence of attacks in the west of the country. In recent years, Dr Bakary Sambe has devoted himself to experimenting with agile approaches in conflict zones and strategies for harnessing endogenous resources to strengthen community resilience, as well as to preventive diplomacy, advising states and regional and international organisations. He is also a lecturer and researcher at the Centre for the Study of Religions at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis (Senegal).

The situation in Mali seems to be reaching a critical point with the advance of JNIM. In your opinion, what are the real risks of a power shift in Bamako into the hands of jihadist groups, and what concrete signs indicate that this prospect is drawing nearer?

The risk of a direct and frontal takeover of power in Bamako by the JNIM (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimîn, also referred to as GSIM in some analyses) remains structurally limited in the short and medium term, not because of the overwhelming superiority of Malian state forces, but because such an undertaking would fundamentally contradict the group's operational and strategic doctrine, as we have deciphered in our recent reports to the Timbuktu Institute, as well as in the September 2025 Observatory Letter devoted to ‘JNIM in Kayes: Economic Fragmentation and Cross-Border Threat’. The JNIM, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, has learned from the historical failures of its predecessors – such as the short-lived capture of Gao and Timbuktu in 2012 by Tuareg and jihadist groups that were temporarily allied, followed by a rapid expulsion by Operation Serval – to avoid conventional confrontations where it would inevitably be defeated by a regular army, even a weakened one, and if necessary within the framework of alliances that could prove fatal to it. Instead, the group has opted for a hybrid war of attrition, combining economic suffocation, political delegitimisation and community anchoring, aiming not at the immediate territorial conquest of the capital, but at its collapse from within under the weight of possible popular uprisings, widespread shortages and a total loss of legitimacy of the military regime in power. This strategy of gradual suffocation is explicitly articulated by the JNIM itself in its propaganda communications, where foreign investors are described as ‘economic colonisers’ exploiting resources without local benefit, a rhetoric that amplifies community grievances and strengthens the group's local roots. There are many concrete and interconnected signs that this prospect of internal collapse is drawing nearer.

How is this JNIM strategy, which you describe as ‘economic jihad’, actually being implemented on the ground in Mali today?

First, there was an escalation of operations against Mali's economic lifelines in 2025: on 1 July, the kidnapping of three Indian engineers at the Diamond Cement Factory in the gold-mining region of Kayes, prompting an immediate diplomatic reaction from New Delhi; between late July and August, six coordinated attacks on Chinese mining sites, resulting in the kidnapping of a dozen Chinese nationals and forcing Beijing to demand that the Malian authorities step up security; on 22 August, a raid on the Bougouni lithium mine operated by the British company Kodal Minerals, causing the death of a security guard and a temporary suspension of operations, with a costly increase in private security. I continue to maintain that these actions are not isolated. Based on my experience with the evolution of jihadist groups in recent decades, these attacks are part of a systematic disruption of logistics chains, with recurring blockades and ambushes on convoys, destroying tanker trucks and heavy equipment on the Bamako-Kayes and Bamako-Sikasso routes. Added to this are massive injections of cash into targeted communities for recruitment via colossal ransoms – between $50 million and $70 million for the release of two Emiratis and one Iranian, not to mention military equipment (off-road vehicles, fuel, small arms) – which are transforming JNIM from an opportunistic guerrilla group into a hybrid force capable of multi-front operations. In my opinion, these funds are likely to finance the purchase of heavy weapons, new-generation homemade explosives, reconnaissance drones and encrypted communication systems, enabling simultaneous raids, accelerated recruitment in mobile camps, and amplified propaganda presenting each payment as a ‘tax on economic crusaders’. The debate within the Katiba Macina leadership on the strategic activation, in the Kayes region, of Abu Leith Al-Lîbî, the hostage-taking specialist, does not seem insignificant. The blockade announced on 3 September by Abu Houzeifa Al-Bambari – prohibiting the import of fuel from Senegal, Mauritania, Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea, and suspending the activities of Diarra Transport – has resulted in the burning of buses and tanker trucks (three on the Bamako-Kayes route on the night of 5 to 6 September), causing price increases, food insecurity (1.52 million people affected in Ménaka and elsewhere) and erosion of state revenues, with the Kayes region accounting for 80% of national gold production. These dynamics, while seeking to delegitimise the regime that promised security through non-Western partnerships (Russia, Turkey to a lesser extent), would increase the risk of an exasperated popular uprising, making the prospect of an indirect shift – through implosion rather than invasion – increasingly tangible, without the JNIM having to expose itself to a conventional assault or an uncertain urban battle.

Some believe that if Mali ‘collapses’, it will lead to profound destabilisation across the whole of Senegambia and West Africa. How would you analyse the cross-border dimension of the risk, and which countries are most exposed in the short term?

The cross-border dimension of the Malian risk is not a collateral consequence, but remains a deliberate strategic lever for JNIM, which, depending on the circumstances, exploits socio-cultural continuity, porous borders and economic interdependencies to transform a national crisis into a regional contagion. Kayes, a migratory and economic crossroads bordered by Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea, was not chosen at random: via National Route 1 (RN1), it handles around 30% of Mali's land imports (2.7 million tonnes of goods per year, including fuel and cereals), and more than 70% of imports pass through regional ports, notably Dakar. By sabotaging this artery – simultaneous attacks on five military or strategic positions in Kayes and Diboli on 1 July (1.3 km from the Senegalese border), the burning of construction equipment on the RN1 on 31 August by the Chinese company COVEC, and the imposition of a curfew until 30 September – the JNIM is not only paralysing Bamako, but also disrupting West African trade flows in general, forcing dependence on secondary roads under insurgent control and encouraging illicit trafficking (gold, livestock, timber). In the short term, Senegal and Mauritania are the most exposed, with multidimensional risks. Mali accounts for 55% of Senegal's total exports to Africa and around 21% of our country's total exports. Mali remains the largest market for Senegalese cement, for example, receiving nearly 80% of Senegal's cement exports to the region, not to mention hydrocarbons. Despite the security crisis, Mali has retained its role as the main importer of fuel and foodstuffs from Senegal, including supplies for ships and aircraft. For Senegal, the disruption of the Bamako-Dakar corridor by jihadists threatens Malian exports transiting through its port, driving up transport costs and the prices of essential goods; the suspension of journeys announced by the Union of Road Transporters of Senegal (UTRS) on 2 July illustrates this immediate vulnerability. In terms of security, the incidents in Diboli and, before that, Melgué point to a risk of infiltration in eastern Senegal, exacerbated by the spread of extremist movements and the weakness of social intelligence in preventive approaches. The deployment of the Rapid Action Surveillance and Intervention Group (Garsi) to Goudiri, supported by the European Union, is certainly a response, but a likely escalation would divert some resources from internal socio-economic priorities. In Mauritania, pressure on Nioro-du-Sahel – breaking with its status of inviolability via the influential Chérif Bouyé Haïdara – and the influx of refugees into the Hodhs and Assaba are stirring up public opinion, with online calls for military intervention to protect the religious leader, who is respected even in the highest circles of Nouakchott, fearing the spectre of the kidnapping of Sheikh Thierno Hady Tall of the Omani Tijâniyya at the end of December 2024. This could inflame cross-border community tensions, with JNIM potentially targeting this influence to recruit or destabilise. In the longer term, contagion would affect Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire, which has already experienced attacks in the Kafolo area via reinforced smuggling networks, complicating the regional fight against terrorism. Without enhanced cooperation involving sincere intelligence sharing and joint security of corridors, a collapse in Mali would turn Senegambia into a weak link, with repercussions for the stability of West Africa as a whole. Senegal must adopt a stronger, politically committed prevention strategy, if only in light of these signals.