On Sept. 17, militants of the al-Qaida-linked JNIM insurgency in Mali launched simultaneous attacks targeting a gendarmerie school in Bamako, the capital, and a military camp at the international airport on the outskirts of the city.
The violence, which left more than 70 people dead and over 200 injured, marked the first time in nine years that Bamako had been targeted by jihadists. Although central and northern Mali have witnessed near-daily attacks in recent months and large parts of the country are no longer under the Malian government’s control, the capital had remained reasonably safe up until now.
Notwithstanding Bamako’s reputation for relative stability in the midst of an increasingly chaotic region, there were signs that an attack on the capital was coming. Jihadists have moved further and further south in recent years, with attacks occurring increasingly closer to the city long seen as a refuge.
In 2022, JNIM claimed an attack on the Kati military base, just outside Bamako. The base is also home to Col. Assimi Goita, the leader of the military junta that has ruled the country since 2020 and Mali’s interim president, though he was unharmed in the attack and very few deaths were reported. That same year, a German priest was also kidnapped from the capital, while attacks on garrison towns near Bamako have become relatively frequent in recent years.
But the fact that such a sustained, well-organized and sophisticated attack has now hit Bamako itself marks a landmark moment in Mali’s longstanding battle with jihadism and could have significant ramifications for Malian politics over the next year.
First and foremost, the assault represents a humiliation for the ruling military junta.
Since seizing executive power in a “coup within a coup” in 2021, Goita has been determined to present his government as being tough on jihadist and separatist violence. He has espoused a nationalist, patriotic discourse, which ultimately led to the eviction of the French and United Nations forces that had been providing the Malian military with counterinsurgency support. Goita’s rhetoric has also provoked numerous disputes with foreign ambassadors.
Meanwhile, Goita has developed Mali’s relations with Russia considerably, with the Wagner Group—now rebranded as the Africa Corps—having replaced French and U.N. forces as Mali’s security partner.
This approach has largely proved ineffective, with civilian deaths around the country mounting in recent years. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, or ACLED, website reported in 2023 that violence targeting civilians in Mali had increased by 38 percent compared to the previous year. And as jihadists take more and more territory, military massacres of civilians are also soaring.
Still, there have been some minor successes since the junta came to power.
In November 2023, Malian forces, with the assistance of Wagner fighters, retook the town of Kidal from separatist rebels in a quick and expedient military victory. The assault won considerable praise among residents of Bamako, who were pleased that the government was retaking territory and making some progress against armed groups in the country, after years of ineffectual efforts.
It also allowed the junta to once again spread the image of a strong, successful, nationalistic government adept at protecting its people.
That image has come crashing down with the latest attack, which demonstrated how ineffective the junta’s counterinsurgency approach really is.
As if to underscore this effect, the government released a statement while the attacks were still underway declaring that the situation was “under control,” when it was quite clear from the subsequent violence that continued to unfold that this could not be further from the truth.
Mali’s junta has spread the image of a strong government adept at protecting its people. That image has come crashing down with the insurgent attack on Bamako.
By striking at the heart of Bamako, JNIM has highlighted that the capital is no longer safe from jihadist violence and that the government is not capable of protecting Malian citizens even where it is strongest. The fact that the attack came on the 64th anniversary of the establishment of the Malian gendarmerie and days after Goita declared that Mali “had considerably weakened armed terrorist groups” only adds to the sense of humiliation.
The immediate reaction to the attack has so far been an outpouring of grief and an outburst of patriotism, as people rally around the troops protecting the country.
However, what happens next could be a problem for Goita, should people begin to scrutinize more closely his regime’s claims that it has largely defeated the jihadists. If they decide that the junta is no better at the task than the military or civilian governments that preceded it, and may even be worse, Goita’s popularity in Bamako will likely start to diminish.
That he remains popular there is due in large part to the propaganda he pedals about retaking territory and defeating jihadist and separatist groups, and his claims that, with the support of Russian mercenaries, the government retains control all over the country. That has played well in a city that rarely experiences any insecurity.
The images of the destruction caused by a handful of jihadists will surely undermine this perception, particularly if the Sept. 17 attacks are not the last seen in the heart of the capital.
Frustration with the government will be all the more pronounced given that the alleged progress on the security front has been used as a catch-all excuse for all the government’s other shortcomings and failures.
Goita has presided over a period of unprecedented human rights abuses that have seen dozens of the junta’s critics disappeared from the streets, political parties dissolved and plans for elections repeatedly delayed or postponed indefinitely. So far, all of these excesses have been tacitly tolerated in the name of defeating the jihadists.
But anger over the government’s ineffective governance has grown recently due to an unprecedented electricity crisis, which led to dozens of deaths earlier this year. The government seemed largely helpless to address the web of corruption and funding shortfalls that beset the national electricity company.
A more pernicious danger lies in wait for Goita as well, though he seems ill-equipped and unlikely to do anything to prevent it. In the aftermath of the Sept. 17 attacks, senior military figures called for calm and urged civilians not to take revenge on perceived culprits for the violence.
But despite the rhetoric of cohesion, national television quickly showed images of those who had been arrested. Dozens of detentions have followed, with limited evidence that anyone being held had anything to do with the attacks.
Meanwhile, vigilante-style attacks on those presumed to have been involved have spread like wildfire. At least one man belonging to the Peuhl ethnic group, which is regularly stigmatized for its alleged involvement with jihadists, was burned alive on the streets of Bamako, while dozens of others were rounded up and handed over to security personnel for their ostensible responsibility for the attacks. The seven cattle markets on the outskirts of the capital, all the preserve of Peuhl herders, were also unceremoniously closed due to what officials called the “threat to public order” they posed.
Members of the Tuareg ethnic group, which is closely associated with separatist movements in northern Mali, have not been spared from these reprisals either. The day after the attacks, one Tuareg soldier who belonged to the presidential guard was found dead under suspicious circumstances.
If the junta does not deal with the fallout of the attacks and the increasing ethnic tensions in the country, there may yet be civil war to go on top of the jihadist and separatist violence it is already having trouble dealing with.
Members of the junta will be watching the situation unfold with interest. Should Goita be perceived by the population of Bamako to be failing, his days will be numbered, most likely to be replaced by another young man in military fatigues waiting to seize his opportunity to try to solve the multitude of problems affecting the country.
Jessica Moody is a peacebuilding and political risk consultant focusing on West Africa. She is the author of “Life After War: Lessons in Human-Centred Peacebuilding from Cote d’Ivoire” (forthcoming), and has a doctorate in post-conflict peacebuilding in Cote d’Ivoire from the War Studies department at King’s College London. You can follow her on Twitter at @JessMoody89.