The Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terrorist group stormed a Malian military base in Boulkessi at dawn on June 1 and opened fire. Hours later, online videos showed celebrating JNIM fighters stepping over the bodies of dead soldiers.
The terrorists claimed to have killed more than 100 soldiers and captured 20. According to The Arab Weekly, the massacre was one of more than a dozen deadly attacks carried out by JNIM on military outposts and towns in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in May and June. The group claimed to have killed more than 400 soldiers during these assaults.
“The offensive produced one of the deadliest 30-day periods on record in the Sahel and made May the deadliest month in the Sahel since August 2024,” wrote analyst Liam Karr for the Institute for the Study of War.
In May, JNIM attacks in the three junta-led countries killed more than 850 people, including security forces, compared to an average of 600 deaths in previous months, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project.
Experts told The Arab Weekly that JNIM was abandoning its attacks primarily in rural areas and aiming to control more territory around urban centers while asserting its political dominance throughout the Sahel.
“The recent attacks demonstrate a concrete effort to encircle Sahel capitals, aiming to create a parallel state stretching from western Mali to southern Niger and northern Benin,” Mucahid Durmaz, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence group Verisk Maplecroft, told the newspaper.
The group was particularly active on July 1, when it attacked two Malian army positions in the center of the country and five army positions in the west, as well as border posts with Mauritania and Senegal. It also attacked Kayes, capital of the Kayes region, which accounts for around 80% of Mali's gold production. Activists also targeted police stations, government buildings and industrial sites. That day, Katiba Macina, a faction of JNIM, struck industrial and mining sites in Bafoulabé along a major logistics and trade corridor.
Although Malian armed forces killed 80 militants during the July 1 fighting, the “scale, timing, and scale” of JNIM’s operation highlighted its “increasingly sophisticated coordination capabilities,” Soufan Center analysts wrote.
On August 1, JNIM ambushed a convoy of Russian Africa Corps mercenaries in the Mopti region of Mali with machine guns and grenade launchers, killing at least three mercenaries and wounding several others.
In Burkina Faso, JNIM increased pressure on administrative centers, population centers and commune capitals throughout the year. Its attacks on Burkinabè communal centers are on track to cause almost as many deaths in 2025 as in 2023 and 2024 combined, ACLED reported. JNIM attacks on Burkina Faso provincial capitals in 2025 are on track to double the death toll compared to 2023 and 2024 combined.
“The shift in attention to municipal and provincial centers indicates an effort to increase pressure on these politically sensitive and 'harder' targets,” Karr wrote.
Many attacks in Burkina Faso have taken place near the Malian border. They exposed the limits of the air support of the Sahelian juntas and highlighted the tactical adaptations of the JNIM which sometimes remained for hours in the seized cities without facing air or drone strikes. A JNIM video showed its fighters using stolen 14.5mm anti-aircraft guns to force Burkinabe air support to withdraw from Djibo.
“An increase in attacks on politically sensitive population centers highlights that the state cannot protect the population, leading local leaders to negotiate with JNIM to protect their communities,” Karr wrote. “JNIM has besieged population centers across the Sahel to achieve these local agreements over the past several years. »
The JNIM is led by Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg and former Malian diplomat. Analysts estimate the group could number several thousand fighters, most of them young men and boys with no economic prospects. He seeks to impose his harsh interpretation of Islamic law in the Sahel. Although JNIM is affiliated with al-Qaeda, its approach in the region is similar to the Islamic State group's efforts in Syria.
In some areas, JNIM imposed strict dress codes, banned music and smoking, ordered men to grow beards, and prevented women from being alone in public places. According to Yvan Guichaoua, a senior researcher at the International Center for Conflict Studies in Bonn, this interpretation of Islam conflicts with the way the religion is normally practiced in communities under JNIM control.
“These practices are clearly a departure from established practices and are certainly not very popular,” Guichaoua told the BBC. “But whether it’s attractive or not also depends on what the state is able to provide, and there’s been a lot of disappointment with what the state has done in recent years.”
