Translated by Federica Conti
The coordinated attacks in Mali on April 25th thrust the country back into the Sahel crisis. Explosions in Bamako and Kati, where the main military headquarters and a crucial site of the council's power are located, along with reported clashes in other strategic cities, signal more than mere instability. They reveal how the promise of restored security, upon which the soldiers justified their legitimacy after the 2020 and 2021 coups, now seems increasingly tenuous. Hours later, the government confirmed the death of Defense Minister, Sadio Camare, killed during the attack at his Kati residence.The most relevant data, however, is not only the violence of the attack but also the degeneration of the security framework in Mali. It has been months since the country has been under huge pressure. Mali appeared already worn out by the strategy of JNIM, the group affiliated to al Qaeda active in Sahel, that had already intensified the attacks and blocked Bamako's means for obtaining supplies, trying to weaken the army through depletion rather than a direct and immediate conquest of the Capital. The events of April seem to confirm that the pressure was not only an episode, but also part of a wider dynamic erosion of state control. The attacks of April 25th also demonstrated a collaboration between militants connected to JNIM and Tuareg divisionists, a strategic convergence that further weakens the council's position.
This evolution acquires more importance if related to Mali's political trajectory of the last few years. When Assimi Goïta took power, the council justified his rise with the need to restore order and security in a country already marked by a long crisis in the Northern area and the diffusion of jihadist groups. In the name of this promise, Bamako had progressively broken its relationship with France and with the international military presence that for years had sustained the contrast against armed groups, expelling both French troops and the ONU mission. In their place, the government talked with Russians, first through Wagner and later through Africa Corps, in an attempt to redefine their alliances and reaffirm their sovereignty. But the results, at least as far as the security plan is concerned, appear more limited. The government, arrived to power with the promise to restore stability, keeps having difficulty to limit the insurrection.
The problem, indeed, is not only military. Mali became a place in which three levels of conflict overlap. The first one is the State and jihadist groups, especially JNIM, that aim at eroding the central authority progressively and amplifying their influence beyond Mali. The second one is the conflict between Bamako and the armed movements in the North, especially in Azawad, where the Tuareg issue and independence movements were never really solved. The third level is the geopolitical one: Sahel has become an area of strategic repositioning, marked by the reshaping of French influence, the Russian advance, and the general weakening of regional security mechanisms. For this reason, April's attacks cannot be read as a mere internal fact: they reflect the crisis as a whole regional organization.
One critical element is that the offensive struck not only the historically volatile north, but also areas near the capital. This shift is loaded with symbolic and political meaning. While past insecurity was seen as distant or confined to remote regions, the attacks near Bamako indicate that the crisis has moved closer to the government’s core. This is especially alarming—not because government collapse seems imminent, but because it demonstrates the junta’s inability to convert military dominance into effective control and lasting stabilization.
The implications extend beyond Mali. The deterioration in security in the country is part of a wider trend across the Sahel, where jihadist groups have strengthened their offensive capabilities and, in some cases, their territorial presence. The strengthening of extremist organisations in the region, combined with the collapse of international support for counter-terrorism and the weakening of regional leadership, has helped to create a vacuum within which violence can spread. In this sense, the Malian crisis concerns not only the junta’s hold on power, but the possibility that the entire region may become even more vulnerable to armed groups, illicit trafficking , and new forms of competition between external actors.
In addition, there is a further factor that makes the Malian case particularly significant from the perspective of international security. Mali highlights the limitations of a response based almost exclusively on force and on a shift in external backing. The replacement of Western support with Russian backing has not brought about the promised turning point; on the contrary, the situation remains characterised by widespread violence, persistent insecurity, and growing pressure on central institutions. In this sense, the crisis in Mali is not merely the story of a state under attack, but also that of the failure of a strategy which has reduced security to a matter of military alliances and repression, without truly stabilising the political and social ground on which the insurgency thrives.
This is why the April attacks signify more than just a new escalation. They demonstrate that Mali remains one of the most vulnerable points in the Sahel and that its crisis continues to have regional and international implications. The junta still holds power, and one cannot automatically speak of imminent collapse, but the fact that jihadist groups and armed actors from the north have managed to strike simultaneously at key areas of the country, including the regime’s military heartland, sends a very strong political signal. Rather than heralding the immediate fall of Bamako, these events indicate that the Malian conflict has entered a phase in which the survival of the central government no longer coincides with its ability to govern the country’s security effectively.
Ultimately, Mali is not merely one of the many crisis hotspots on the African continent. It is one of the places where it is clearly evident how the crisis in the Sahel is changing in nature: less peripheral than has been portrayed in the past, closer to the centres of state power, more intertwined with international rivalries, and more difficult to tackle through military means alone.
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