Jihadist attack on airport shakes Mali's junta

The Al-Qaeda flag flies over an airport building. A jihadist puts a burning rag in the engine of the presidential jet, others explore the VIP terminal or fire shots as they approach the planes of the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) – which represents a sure chance of survival for many countries in crisis situations around the world.

Images circulating on social media of jihadists attacking the international airport complex outside Mali's capital Bamako on Tuesday morning and then roaming the grounds illustrate the fragility of the security of one of the West African country's most protected places.

A gendarmerie (paramilitary police) training center in the suburb of Faladié was also attacked. Residents filmed smoke rising over the skyline as explosions and gunfire shattered the dawn calm.

Another video released by the militants is equally shocking: it shows fighters, their soft teenage faces in stark contrast to their weapons and combat uniforms, preparing to attack.

The military leadership in Mali has not released any information on the number of casualties, except for a few gendarmes in training who lost their lives. However, it appears that at least 60, possibly as many as 80 or 100 people were killed and another 200 or more injured.

These figures may also include militants killed when government forces regained control of Senou airport and Faladié barracks.

Of course, these are by no means the first images of the conflict in Mali.

The country has been in a deep crisis since the end of 2011 at the latest. At that time, separatists of the Tuareg ethnic group from the north and radical Islamist groups allied with them took over Timbuktu, Gao and other cities in the north of the country.

Bamako has experienced attacks before. In 2015, an attack on the luxury Radisson Blu hotel left 20 people dead, and five more died in a shooting at a restaurant in the lively Hippodrome district.

In 2017, at least four people were killed in an attack on a tourism complex on the outskirts of the city.

In 2020, Colonel Assimi Goïta, an experienced combat commander, led a coup, criticising the failure of the elected government to effectively manage the security crisis.

A civilian-led transfer of power soon occurred, but in May 2021, Colonel Goïta led a second coup to regain control for himself and his colleagues.

But despite an increased focus on security and the hiring of the Russian mercenary force Wagner for additional military support – which led to a dispute with France that ultimately resulted in the withdrawal of the several thousand-strong French anti-terrorist force Barkhane – the new regime proved no more successful than its civilian predecessor in ending the violence.

Open conflict was mainly confined to the desert in the north and the more fertile central regions, where tensions were fuelled by competition between farmers from the Dogon ethnic group and pastoralists from the Peul (Fulani) for valuable land and water resources.

But there have been occasional indications that the jihadists are able to advance further south into this vast country, as far as Bamako and the surrounding area.

In July 2022, militants carried out two smaller attacks near the city and then attempted a major assault: they tried to force their way into the Kati barracks complex, the junta's base just 15 kilometers north of the capital.

This showed that the insurgents are capable of carrying out spectacular raids far beyond the northern regions, where their presence shapes daily life.

However, the army managed to contain the attack, with the only casualties being two militants killed. And ultimately, the Goïta regime was able to ignore the further consequences of the incident.

Although the attack was attributed to Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-affiliated coalition of armed groups that is Mali's largest jihadist force, it did not significantly weaken the junta's confidence or its ability to set the domestic and diplomatic agenda.

Only a few weeks later, the French completed the withdrawal of their troops, driven out of the country by the regime's political hostility and the increasingly stringent regulations that limited the Barkhane troops' ability to operate.

And the following year, the junta felt sufficiently emboldened to demand the dissolution of the 14,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, known by the acronym Minusma.

Will Colonel Goïta's junta be able to dismiss this week's high-profile attacks with the same confident control of the agenda that it managed after the July 2022 incidents?

In a vast country whose territory could never be fully controlled by the official security forces, even with the support of Wagner – now Corps Africa – it is not surprising that a number of jihadist fighters managed to carry out raids on locations around Bamako.

And these spectacular advances are far from enough to ensure that the militant groups gain control over vast areas of land and numerous villages that are typical of parts of central and northern Mali.

However, the security situation in West Africa is much more fragile today than it will be in 2022.

In the central Sahel, the JNIM and the other major jihadist faction, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), are advancing further south.

The military regime in neighbouring Burkina Faso – which is allied with the juntas of Mali and Nigeria in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) – has lost control over large tracts of land and possibly even most of the rural areas.

And in Niger, jihadists regularly carry out attacks throughout the west and even within an hour's drive of the capital, Niamey.

In addition, militants now regularly penetrate the countries' northern coastal areas, especially in Benin and Togo. In Ivory Coast, they have only been pushed back by sustained military efforts, supported by a “hearts and minds” program of development spending.

Overall, the security situation in the region is more difficult than ever.

But in Mali itself the mood was completely different.

Last year, government troops launched a highly successful campaign to recapture northern towns previously controlled by the former separatist Tuareg movement, which had signed a peace agreement with the civilian government in 2015 but which was annulled by the junta.

Although these northern groups inflicted a heavy defeat on the army and its Russian allies in the Battle of Tinzaouaten in the Sahara at the end of July, the regime's power over the main urban centres of the north appears to be consolidating for the time being.

This campaign against the former separatists and the army's reoccupation of their Saharan headquarters in Kidal met with widespread support from the southern public on the streets of Bamako.

And Colonel Goïta and his junta colleagues have so far seen no reason to make concessions to the West African bloc Ecowas, which is showing them goodwill and wants to persuade them to withdraw their declaration of withdrawal from the community.

It seems unlikely that this week's shocking attacks on the outskirts of Bamako will change that dynamic, even if it is humiliating to see JNIM fighters roaming freely on the grounds of the international airport, where air traffic has now resumed.

Rather, there is a danger that the Malian regime will, at least in the short term, cause a resurgence of nationalist feelings – and thus also a deepening of mistrust between ethnic groups. Populist accusations are all too often directed against those groups that are regularly accused of jihadist sympathy or jihadist involvement.

Among the numerous videos emerging from Bamako on social media this week were not only scenes of arrests by the authorities, but also apparent images of the “arrest” of suspected suspects by citizens and at least one lynching in which a man was burned alive in the street.

And, as is so often the case, it is members of the Peul community who are the main target of such brutal reprisals in a country that so desperately needs peace and stability.

Paul Melly is a consultant to the Africa Programme at Chatham House in London.