Middle Eastern and African sources are increasingly warning that Mali may soon become the first country in the world governed by an organization officially designated as a terrorist group — al-Qaeda. The standoff between the military junta in Bamako and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) has entered its final stage: the blockade of the capital, marked by fuel shortages, skyrocketing prices, and a near-total collapse of infrastructure.
At the turn of 2025, the world is facing a grim paradox. Globalization, having reached the limits of interdependence, has not made nations more resilient — it has made crises contagious. When a new zone of anarchy appears on the map, waves of instability now reach global capitals through trade, migration, and terrorism faster than ever before.
The Sahel — the vast belt stretching from Senegal to Eritrea — has become the epicenter of this new global fever. In 2024 alone, 51 percent of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide occurred here. If Bamako falls, Mali will become the first state formally controlled by al-Qaeda. This isn’t just another African tragedy — it’s a symptom of the world’s collective paralysis, exposing the impotence of international institutions from the UN to the European Union.
The question now is how and why the Sahel became a laboratory for the transformation of terrorism — from a networked insurgency into a territorially entrenched proto-state — and what that means for the architecture of global security.
Economic and Social Collapse
Over the past few months, fuel prices in Bamako have more than tripled, and food supplies have nearly stopped. Blocked roads from Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire have paralyzed the country’s logistics. JNIM has adopted a classic “siege by exhaustion” strategy — starving the army and civilians into submission. The capital isn’t being conquered by fighters, but by hunger, despair, and fatigue.
Schools, universities, and government offices are closed. Electricity is sporadic, inflation is raging, and the black market thrives. Public trust in Colonel Assimi Goïta’s junta — which seized power in a coup and expelled French forces — has all but collapsed.
From French Protectorate to Russian Experiment
In 2021, the junta expelled French troops, accusing Paris of neo-colonial ambitions and military failure. Into the vacuum stepped mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. Their arrival brought a fleeting sense of security but solved none of Mali’s deeper problems. Reports of civilian massacres, kidnappings, and arbitrary arrests in the north and center further alienated the population. Many villages, disillusioned with the state, turned to Islamists who, unlike the government, offered at least a semblance of “justice” and protection.
Today, Wagner forces guard gold mines and prop up Goïta’s regime, but real power is slipping away from Bamako. The paradox is stark: a military government dependent on foreign mercenaries has become the main accelerant of Islamist expansion.
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin: Al-Qaeda’s African Face
Formed in 2017, JNIM is a coalition of jihadist factions including Ansar Dine, Al-Mourabitoun, and the “Emirate of the Sahel.” Operating across Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania, they pledge allegiance to al-Qaeda’s central leadership. Their strategy mirrors that of their parent organization: not to storm capitals but to methodically erode statehood itself.
Their goal is to impose a theocratic system where Sharia replaces secular law and governance flows through a network of local emirs. For JNIM, Mali is a miniature Afghanistan — vast land, weak army, corrupt elites, and total dependency on outside powers.
A War of Attrition: The Afghan Replay
Analysts see eerie parallels between JNIM’s tactics and those of the Taliban before Kabul’s fall. First, they choke supply lines, then grind down the security forces, and finally enter “peace talks” once society is too exhausted to resist — casting themselves as legitimate political interlocutors. Step by step, that’s how extremism wins recognition.
Rumors are already circulating in Bamako of secret contacts between junta officials and JNIM envoys. There’s no confirmation, but the trend is clear: the regime is searching for a way out, and compromise with those who control the roads, borders, and food routes is beginning to look like the only option.
Geo-Economic Shift: Mines, Moscow, and a New Dependency
Meanwhile, Mali’s rulers have revoked more than ninety mining and exploration licenses — covering gold, bauxite, iron ore, and uranium — targeting British, Canadian, Australian, and South African companies. Officially, this is a pivot toward “economic sovereignty.” In practice, it’s an open invitation to Russian firms, which offer not just concessions but also fuel, weapons, and “advisers.”
Mali is fast becoming the cornerstone of Moscow’s Sahel strategy. Russia gains access to gold and rare earths; the junta gains the muscle to cling to power. But the boomerang effect is brutal: the closer Bamako aligns with Moscow, the more local resistance movements — even those once hostile to jihadists — begin to see Islamists as a counterweight to a new form of neocolonial control.
The Fall of Bamako: The Point of No Return
If Bamako falls, it won’t just be a domestic collapse — it will detonate the entire security architecture of West Africa. Mali is the keystone in a fragile chain of instability stretching from Chad to the Atlantic. Losing its capital would mark the first time in modern history that a state falls under the control of a movement officially tied to al-Qaeda.
That would redraw the geopolitical map of the region. Neighboring states — Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea — are already infected by the same ideological virus. Together, they form a belt where Islamism has evolved into a form of social protest and a political alternative to rotting regimes. Should Bamako fall, the southern edge of the Sahara will host a new Afghanistan — flat, NATO-free, and ruled by three things: the Quran, the Kalashnikov, and gold for export.
This is how a new model of 21st-century statehood emerges — a theocratic dictatorship built on the ruins of the postcolonial world.
From Anti-Colonial Dreams to Strategic Void
Independence in the 1960s did not bring institutional maturity to the Sahel. Postcolonial elites, bound by ethnic and regional loyalties, built pseudo-states with chronically weak legitimacy. Their economies stayed colonial in structure — dependent on raw exports, devoid of industry, burdened by population growth.
The collapse of Libya in 2011 became the great unraveler. Thousands of armed fighters and tens of thousands of weapons poured south, reigniting old conflicts — especially in Mali, where Tuaregs once again raised the flag of Azawad autonomy. But jihadist groups — AQIM, MUJAO, Ansar Dine — quickly hijacked the rebellion. The ideal of tribal self-rule was swallowed by the ideology of global jihad.
French interventions — Operations Serval (2013) and Barkhane (2014–2022) — bought time but achieved no strategy. The international community built a system of guardianship, not resilience. Three zones — Liptako-Gourma, Lake Chad, and Niger’s borders — turned into no-man’s-lands of failed governance.
The Anatomy of Collapse: When Counterterrorism Breeds Terror
Africa’s war on extremism became a carbon copy of the Afghan debacle. Local military elites, propped up by foreign support, lost legitimacy. When international troops withdrew, they faced their own populations armed with nothing but repression.
After the French pullout and the UN’s MINUSMA mission closed in 2023, Mali’s de facto rulers became the army and Russia’s Wagner Group. In March 2022, the massacre in Moura — over 300 civilians killed — became the breaking point. The people turned away from the state for good.
Mali’s economy — where 75 percent of citizens live on less than two dollars a day — is shattered by blockades and sanctions. Islamists now control fuel and food trade routes, effectively managing logistics across the north and center. Their playbook is simple: a war of attrition. Starve the system, trigger a humanitarian collapse, then step in as the only force capable of imposing order and “justice.”
That’s how jihadism has evolved from a mobile insurgency into a quasi-state. JNIM, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the Sahel, now operates a parallel system of governance, taxation, and Sharia courts across much of central Mali.
The Sahel: Arena of the New Global Rivalry
The Sahel is not just a stretch of sand between the Sahara and the savanna. It’s the hinge of a new world order. From the Atlantic to the Red Sea — across Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Sudan — this ribbon of dust has become the front line of a 21st-century struggle over resources, trade routes, and ideology.
After the collapse of Western interventions — notably France’s Barkhane mission and the UN’s MINUSMA, officially wound down in 2023 — Paris and Brussels lost their grip. France not only withdrew from its bases in Gao, Timbuktu, and Niamey but also lost control of uranium supplies from Niger, once covering 15 percent of its nuclear energy demand.
Niamey’s decision to cut ties with the French mining giant Orano (formerly Areva) symbolized the end of France’s neocolonial era in the Sahel. Crowds burned French flags. The rallying cry “France dégage!” — “France, get out!” — became the manifesto of a new generation of rulers: soldiers in power, flying the banner of sovereignty.
Russia seized the opening with surgical precision. Through Wagner — later rebranded as the “Africa Corps” under the Russian Defense Ministry — Moscow cemented its foothold in Mali, the Central African Republic, and Burkina Faso.
The formula is blunt: security for resources. In Mali, Russian mercenaries guard the Morila and Syama gold mines. In the CAR, they oversee diamond and uranium extraction. According to UN data, Mali’s gold exports to the UAE and Russia have jumped more than 60 percent since 2021. In Niger, Moscow is negotiating arms sales and military training packages that include air defense systems, drones, and advisers.
The Kremlin sells a seductive narrative: “sovereign security.” It’s a doctrine that rejects Western-style democracy in favor of a state’s right to defend itself without outside interference. That message resonates deeply with African elites who see Moscow not as a colonizer but as a partner against Western meddling.
Beijing, meanwhile, plays a quieter but far more systematic game. Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested over $60 billion in Africa over the past decade — building roads, railways, farms, and solar plants across the Sahel. Sinohydro built Mali’s Gourbassi Dam; Chinese companies developed uranium infrastructure in Niger and run the oil refinery in Chad’s capital, N'Djamena.
China avoids coups and chaos, preferring debt over force. Sahel countries now owe Beijing around $13 billion — a leash long enough to ensure compliance. In return, they get roads, ports, and digital infrastructure dominated by Huawei and ZTE.
Turkey has also entered the game — an unexpected but ambitious player. After its success in Somalia (Camp TURKSOM) and intervention in Libya, Ankara sees the Sahel as the southern front of its Afro-Asian strategy. Through TIKA, the Diyanet Foundation, and humanitarian programs, Turkey promotes “Islamic solidarity” — a soft-power variant of neo-Ottoman influence.
In Niger, Turkey has opened a military mission and trains local officers; in Chad, it’s building water and healthcare projects. Its “drone diplomacy” — exporting Bayraktar TB2s and setting up service hubs — has become a symbol of independence from the West. For local regimes, drones aren’t just machines; they’re statements of sovereignty.
To African militaries and youth alike, Erdoğan looks less like an autocrat and more like a leader unafraid of America. Turkey plays where Islamic identity trumps Western democracy — and it’s winning influence through pride, not preaching.
Together, these three powers are carving a new axis of influence:
Russia brings muscle and guns,
China brings money and infrastructure,
Turkey brings faith and cultural legitimacy.
This triad presents itself as an alternative to the West — a model of “sovereign development” over “democratic transition.” In the Sahel, the West hasn’t just lost ground; it’s lost moral authority. After the coups in Mali (2020, 2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023), Western talk of “democratic reform” rings hollow.
Europe is scrambling to fill the void with aid programs, but trust is gone. Even nations still friendly to Paris, like Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, are exploring partnerships with Ankara and Beijing. In the vacuum left by the West, a new African reality is emerging — multipolar, pragmatic, and emotionally de-Westernized.
The Sahel has become a laboratory of the 21st century — a place where the Global South is testing a radical question: can the world live without the West, and if so, who will replace it?
Regional Fallout: The Humanitarian and Migration Spiral
Over the past decade, conflict in the Sahel has displaced more than 5.4 million people. Temperatures in the region are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, eroding traditional livelihoods and pushing millions toward the brink. The mix of climate shock and armed chaos is turning the Sahel into one of the world’s largest potential sources of mass migration northward.
If 2015 brought Europe the refugee wave from Syria, the Sahel crisis of 2025–2030 could trigger a “second migration arc” — exponentially larger. The UN projects that by 2035, as many as 30 million people may flee the region due to conflict and climate disasters.
The Precedent of State-Sponsored Jihad
The real danger isn’t in isolated terrorist attacks, but in the institutionalization of extremism. Mali could become the first modern example of a jihadist movement not merely holding territory but governing it — with the consent, or at least acquiescence, of parts of the local population. Terrorism, in this model, becomes not a temporary disruption but a permanent condition.
The closest precedent is Afghanistan in 1996. But Mali is more complex — ethnically fragmented and socially fragile. Here, Islamist authority grows not through conquest but through a kind of social contract: security in exchange for justice. For impoverished rural communities, a Sharia court can seem fairer than a bribe-hungry officer from the capital.
If Bamako falls, the new regime won’t be a “classical caliphate.” It will be a hybrid — a quasi-state built on jihadist ideology and pragmatic economics. Its survival would challenge not just Africa, but the entire international order grounded in the Westphalian model of state sovereignty.
Global Ripple Effects: Four Scenarios
Regional chain reaction. A strengthened JNIM and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) could spread instability across Niger and Burkina Faso, undermine Algeria’s southern borders, and fuel smuggling through Mauritania.
Global transit corridor. The Sahel could fuse into a massive gray zone — a belt linking North Africa to the Middle East through illicit trade, weapons, narcotics, and human trafficking routes.
European political blowback. A new migration wave could turbocharge far-right parties, polarize politics, and fracture EU unity even further.
Asian entanglement. China, with billions invested in Sahelian infrastructure, might be forced to protect its assets — creating new, subtler forms of African neocolonialism.
Pathways Forward
Redefine international engagement. Move from military missions to local partnerships focused on rebuilding economies, governance, and trust.
Create a unified Sahel Development Fund. Under the joint leadership of the UN, IMF, and African Development Bank, link humanitarian and climate programs to long-term security goals.
Bring in new mediators. Involve Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Gulf states as neutral actors with Islamic legitimacy — capable of bridging the trust gap with local communities.
Leverage technology for security. Use satellites and drone-based platforms for early detection of militant movements and humanitarian risks.
Reform the UN’s peacekeeping model. Shift from “peacekeeping” to “peace-building” — from holding territory to rebuilding institutions that can sustain peace on their own.
The Sahel as the Mirror of the 21st Century
The crisis in Mali is not merely the collapse of a state; it’s a preview of a new kind of global disorder. The wars of the past are giving way to what might be called “anarchies with infrastructure” — places where the state disappears but some form of authority, however illegitimate, remains.
The Sahel is the test case for the century’s biggest question: can the world confront the collapse of statehood without lapsing into neocolonial reflexes or spawning fresh cycles of violence?
If the world loses Mali, it risks losing the very idea of international order itself.