Written by Mohamed AG Ahmedou, journalist specializing in the political and security dynamics of the central Sahel.
Abou Houzeyfa Al Bambari, JNIM spokesperson in the southern and western regions of Mali.
On September 3, 2025, the spokesperson for the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), Abou Houzeyfa Al Bambari, announced a worrying turning point in the Sahelian war: the populations of the Kayes and Nioro regions of the Sahel are now becoming deliberate targets of jihadists. The reason given: their open support for the Malian army, considered to be “under the orders of the Bamako military junta.”
This threat, unprecedented in an area long spared from armed violence, illustrates the resounding failure of the junta’s security strategy which, after five years in power, has neither stemmed the advance of jihadist groups nor protected civilian populations.
An unprecedented blockade, an assumed threat
According to Abou Houzeyfa Al Bambari, JNIM men have established a blockade on the strategic routes linking Kayes, Nioro, and Bamako. Vehicles have been confiscated, passengers arrested and then released, on the condition that they do not originate from the targeted regions. The message is clear: Kayes and Nioro are now isolated, collectively suspected of collusion with the army.
The private company “Diarra Transport” was even explicitly targeted, with several buses set on fire on September 3 between Kayes and Diéma. This attack on a civil society illustrates the jihadists’ desire to punish not only the state, but also those who, by choice or coercion, demonstrate their support for the armed forces.
The bus of the company “Diarra Transpor”, burned by the JNIM, on September 3, 2025 between Kayes and Diema.
A failure of the junta, symbol of Farabougou
The situation is rekindling the trauma of Farabougou, a town in central Mali that fell into the hands of JNIM in November 2020, the scene of repeated attacks despite Assimi Goïta’s security promises. The man his opponents ironically nicknamed “the Rambo of Farabougou” has never been able to break this symbolic barrier. Five years later, the threat now extends to the borders of Kayes, a region once presented as the country’s stable bastion.
Populations used as human shields
By encouraging civilian self-defense committees, the Malian military junta is exposing local communities to massive reprisals. The example of Barsalogo in Burkina Faso, where hundreds of civilians were massacred on August 24, 2024, by the JNIM, now looms large over Kayes and Nioro. The logic of “militia formation” of the population, presented as a patriotic surge, is turning into a death trap.
A policy of diversion from state crimes
While Bamako is filing a complaint against Algeria at the International Court of Justice for the shooting down of a Malian drone, the domestic reality is quite different: the Malian army and its Russian allies from Wagner and Africa Corps are accused by NGOs and local witnesses of systematic massacres of Tuareg, Fulani, and Arab civilians in the center and north of the country.
The contrast is striking: indulgence towards the jihadists, who have still occupied Anderboukane in the Ménaka region since May 2022, but disproportionate violence against the nomadic populations, in the name of “reconquering the territory”.
International silence, tacit complicity
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, recently denounced the arbitrary arrests of political opponents and civil society actors by the regime in Mali. But as Mohamed Maouloud Ould Ramadan, spokesperson for the Azawad Liberation Front, pointed out, “this junta of criminals has not limited itself to the arbitrary arrest of civilians; it is also responsible for systemic ethnic cleansing.”
This serious accusation, relayed by Malian and Sahelian actors, warns of a risk of a slide towards unpunished mass crimes, while the international community looks the other way, absorbed by the geopolitical issues of the region.
A war without a horizon
Mali is currently experiencing a tragic paradox: while the junta presents itself as the last bulwark against terrorism, its inability to contain JNIM and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) is opening new fronts. Kayes and Nioro, long areas of economic and migratory retreat, are becoming theaters of clashes where civilians are designated as legitimate targets.
In a country where the state has failed to protect and reconcile, the war is now turning against the people themselves.
Mohamed AG Ahmedou
06-09-25