The End of the Sahelian Exception: Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Clash in Central Mali

ABSTRACT

Until the beginning of 2020, the Sahel was something of an exception with respect to international rivalry between jihadists. This came to an end when violent clashes involving supporters of Al-Qaeda and those affiliated with the Islamic State were recorded in central Mali. The violent escalation that has taken place between Katiba Macina and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara in the inner Niger Delta should be framed as a battle between a dominant power whose position has begun to be contested, and a rising challenger trying to exploit the situation. More specifically, the rise of Islamic State appears directly connected to the material and symbolic crisis of the system of governance established by Katiba Macina in the area under its control. As the result of a process that cuts across various developments in the recent history of Mali, the conflict between the two jihadist movements threatens to unlock a new and more violent phase in Mali’s longstanding crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Mali
• jihadi governance
• jihadist insurgency
• rebel fragmentation
• Big Man networks

Notes

¹ WhatsApp audio message from Amadou Kouffa, obtained through our interviewees’ network, April 2020. All quotes in the articles are translations by the authors.

² The group is affiliated to Al-Qaeda and a member of the JNIM. Macina Liberation Front is a name used mostly by international observers and practitioners, while the group usually calls itself by the name Katiba Macina, which could be translated as ‘the battalion of the Macina’. The term Katiba was used to refer to the fighting units of the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN, National Liberation Army) during the Algerian War. More recently, various jihadist insurgencies in North Africa have employed the term Katiba to name their different sub-units. This also explains why the name Katiba Macina better captures the participation of the organisation in the wider jihadist alliance led by Iyad ag Ghali.

³ The JNIM and ISGS should not be treated as two unitary and clearly hierarchically organised agents, but rather as more or less loose alliances established between partially autonomous groups. Fragmentation and fluidity tend to characterise the Sahelian jihadist landscape, both at the level of leadership and of members and supporters. For example, ISGS officially joined ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) in March 2019, but the former has maintained its operative and strategic autonomy (see Berlingozzi and Stoddard 2020). For these reasons, we prefer to employ the term “coalition” along with that of “group” when talking about the insurgent actors in Mali and the Sahel.

⁴ Because of the extremely sensitive subject of this article, all interviews have been anonymised.

⁵ Debate exists as to whether or not the inter-jihadist struggle and episodes of ethnic cleansing that are taking place in central Mali represent the beginning of a fourth phase in the Malian conflict.

⁶ The Bamako agreement was signed by the Malian government and representatives of the northern rebels – with the exclusion of the jihadist groups – after two years of negotiations brokered by Algeria and other international and regional actors.

⁷ Interview with Fulani activist, Bamako, December 2019.

⁸ Interview with local security expert and employee of the United Nations, Bamako, December 2019. The most (in)famous militia in central Mali is Dan Na Ambassagou, a Dogon armed group responsible for various mass killings in the region. Its founder Youssouf Toloba recently confirmed that the group was formed with the support of the former Malian Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga (Sogoba 2020).

⁹ Interview with investigative journalist and reporter, Bamako, December 2019.

¹⁰ Interview with Fulani activist, Mopti, March 2020.

¹¹ Interview with Fulani activist, Bamako, December 2019.

¹² This outline of jihadist organisations was based on information collected during three different interviews, with: 1) employee of the European Union Military Training Mission in Mali (Bamako, December 2019); 2) local security expert and employee of the Spanish Cooperation (Bamako, December 2019); and 3) employee of the French Ministry of Defence (Paris, November 2015).

¹³ Interview with local witness and activist, Mopti, March 2020.

¹⁴ Killed in March 2020 by a Malian army airstrike.

¹⁵ Interview with local witness (previously kidnapped by Katiba Macina) and member of civil society, Mopti, March 2020.

¹⁶ Interview with Fulani member of civil society, Mopti, March 2020.

¹⁷ Interview with customary leader, Dialloubé (Mopti region), March 2020.

¹⁸ The declarations we are referring to here were circulated as audio and video messages through the principal social networks, especially WhatsApp. This material was shared with us by local informants and Fulani inhabitants of the region of Mopti, and we possess a copy of it.

¹⁹ Requests for a more aggressive and violent strategy against concurrent jihadist groups and civil servants came in particular from fighters in Nampala: Skype interview with security expert based in Bamako, June 2020.

²⁰ Interview with security expert and employee of the United Nations, Bamako, December 2019.

²¹ Skype interview with security expert based in Bamako, June 2020.

²² This information was confirmed by all our interviewees in the Mopti region, March 2020.

²³ The role played by children as informants for the jihadist groups was highlighted by a Fulani activist, interviewed in Mopti, March 2020.

²⁴ Interview with customary leader, Dialloubé (Mopti region), March 2020.

²⁵ Interviews with Fulani member of civil society, Mopti, March 2020; local expert and worker for the Spanish Cooperation, Bamako, December 2019.

²⁶ WhatsApp video message, recorded and received in April 2020.

²⁷ According to a former herder (now displaced in Mopti) interviewed in Mopti in March 2020, zakat collected by Katiba Macina consists of one bull for every thirty cows, and one calf for every forty cows, to be consigned to the group by every herder each year.

²⁸ Interview with NGO employee and project director of a conflict-management program implemented in the region of Mopti, Bamako, December 2019.

²⁹ WhatsApp audio message from Abou Mahmoud, recorded before March 2020, received in April 2020.

³⁰ In the modern Salafi use of the term, takfir implies the excommunication of the impious and apostates, who shall consequently be attacked and killed by the mujahidin. In the case of Mali, discussions revolve around the relations to be built with the remaining representatives of the state in the area, and more generally about whether or not to accept negotiations with the central government.

³¹ Interview with local security expert and employee of the United Nations, Bamako, December 2019.

³² Interview with customary leader, Dialloubé (Mopti region), March 2020.

³³ WhatsApp audio message recorded by Amadou Kouffa (see above).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Edoardo Baldaro

Edoardo Baldaro is a FNRS (Funds for Scientific Research – Belgium) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Recherche et Études en Politique Internationale (REPI) of the Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.

Yida Seydou Diall

Yida Seydou Diall is a Doctoral Student and Research Lecturer in Private Law at the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of the University of Bamako, Bamako, Mali. Email: [email protected]