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Intensified JNIM Attacks Threaten Coastal West Africa
In June and July 2025, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, launched coordinated attacks across the Sahel that portend a deterioration of the regional security environment. JNIM successfully conducted complex assaults on civilian and military targets in strategically significant locales that include Timbuktu in northern Mali on 02 June and Niono in central Mali on 01 July, as well as Kayes and Diboli along the Malian border with Senegal on 01 July. JNIM attacks have also become more frequent across Northern Benin, Northern Togo, and Southwestern Niger, demonstrating the increasing risk the group poses to Coastal West Africa.
Recommendations
- Global Guardian advises against non-essential travel to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger due to an increase in violence from non-state actors.
- Firms with assets and/or personnel in Coastal West Africa need to prepare for a heightened terror and militant threat environment.
- Global Guardian recommends monitoring the security situation in impacted countries and other affected states, particularly through real-time intel reports and analysis.
- Robust mission planning and security support are recommended for essential travel within the Sahel.
Situation Report
On 02 June 2025, JNIM militants conducted a sophisticated attack in Timbuktu. Militants detonated a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) to gain access to a military base and followed up with motorcycle and infantry assaults on three security checkpoints in the northern and eastern sectors of the city. Dozens of soldiers were killed during the assault, according to local and military sources.
01 July 2025, JNIM militants conducted simultaneous attacks in the towns of Niono, Kayes, Diboli, Nioro du Sahel, Gogui, Molodo, and Sandare in Mali. In Niono, fighters seized a military base and multiple checkpoints, killing at least 10 soldiers, capturing weapons and vehicles, and destroying 10 vehicles and motorcycles. Africa Corps—a private military corporation ostensibly run by Russian military intelligence—inflicted heavy losses on JNIM in Kayes and Nioro. Two of the main regional highways—Trans-Sahelian Highway (TAH 5) and Cairo-Dakar Highway (TAH 1)—are now at continuous risk of disruption from blockades, landmines, ambushes, and drone attacks.
The months of May and June saw JNIM and its affiliate organizations conduct attacks in Alibori and Kouarfa in northern Benin and Kpendjal in northern Togo, as well as Garbougna and Tezguen in southern Niger. These incidents included ambushes on security patrols, IED attacks on roadways, and targeted assaults on military camps near national borders.
Analysis
The West African security landscape is rapidly deteriorating as JNIM and other Jihadist groups exploit the security vacuum left in the Sahel following the expulsion of French, U.S., and UN forces. The principal foreign security assistance in the region—Russia’s Africa Corps—has not demonstrated the military effectiveness displayed in previous French missions (such as Operation Serval) that successfully pushed JNIM away from population centers in Mali.
Russian forces—unlike French forces—lack regional knowledge and experience in conducting effective counterinsurgency campaigns overseas. Additionally, Africa Corps’ primary function in the region is not counterinsurgency but rather regime security. Africa Corps operations, which frequently target civilians, particularly those belonging to dissident minority ethnic groups such as the Tuaregs and Fulani, have served to alienate potential allies and delegitimize Sahelian regimes as providers of security. Russian security assistance often helps JNIM’s overarching strategy of delegitimizing secular central governments and grafting Jihadism onto existing ethnic and political conflicts.
The result is a self-feeding cycle wherein JNIM foments insecurity in an area, demonstrating the regime’s illegitimacy as a security provider, before subsequently offering the residents of that area security in exchange for cooperation. The more areas JNIM brings into a cooperative posture, the better able it is to project insecurity further afield. JNIM’s success in accomplishing its strategic goals is demonstrated by its growing tactical sophistication as local cooperation with the group augments its intelligence, logistics, and fundraising capacities through networks of informants, sympathizers, and tax collectors.
Looking Forward
The security situation in the Sahel will continue to deteriorate and pose an increasingly direct threat to Coastal West Africa unless the Sahelian states make significant strategic changes to their counterinsurgency operations. The possibility of coup-d'etats in the region is lowered slightly by the presence of Africa Corps in its role as regime security, but weakening regime control of territory and resources could eventually make the Sahelian governments unattractive partners for foreign backers like Russia.
As more territory and people come under the direct administration of JNIM and other Jihadist groups, their ability to export and profit from insecurity will likely grow and accelerate. The potential for the rapid growth of Jihadist quasi-statelets—as seen in Iraq and Syria in the mid-2010s—becomes greater with growing regional insecurity.
Key Takeaways
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