Mali is not Syria, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is not Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.
While the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the rise of the Ahmed al-Sharaa government in Damascus, Syria can be seen as a net positive for regional security in the Levant, a Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin victory in Mali would devastate the region.
Unlike Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is a horizontally integrated transnational coalition committed to dismantling existing international borders, with a rank and file too radical to accept an Islamic Emirate of Mali as a terminal goal. Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of the West African al-Qaeda affiliate, is not the same man as Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the former Syrian al-Qaeda leader who became the country’s president.
As a local security analyst who has examined Islamist insurgencies in West Africa and the Sahel for over a decade, I assess that al-Qaeda’s West African affiliate, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (The Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims), is increasingly the gravest strategic threat to West Africa.
If Mali were to succumb to Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, external powers — including Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union — should plan for and work towards containment, continuity, and regional stabilization. They should initiate programs to insulate Mali’s neighbors from spillover effects, increase military aid to strengthen the size and capabilities of regional armed forces, and invest in developing the capacity and capabilities of regional powers such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire to lead interventions to support the smaller states in the region.
Mali On the Brink
On the morning of April 25, 2026, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin launched a surprise offensive across Mali, in alliance with the separatist Azawad Liberation Front.
The offensive spanned 478,000 square miles in the north, central, and south of the country. Confusion followed as events unfolded rapidly. Mali’s defense minister, Gen. Sadio Camara, was killed along with his wife and at least two of his grandchildren when a suicide truck bomb detonated at his residence inside Kati, a major Malian army camp 15 kilometers northwest of the capital, Bamako. Kati is the ruling junta’s home base. Another suicide car bomb and gun attack was reported to have occurred at junta leader Gen. Assimi Goïta’s residence, although in this case, the insurgents failed to achieve their goals.
By April 30, when the dust had settled enough to allow preliminary assessments, in addition to the dead defense minister, the head of military intelligence, General Modibo Koné, was rumored to be seriously wounded or also killed. Like Camara, he was supposedly killed inside Kati. All of Kidal and most of Gao had fallen to the insurgents, with active clashes continuing a day later over Sévaré, a critical military stronghold in central Mali.
In addition, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin declared a “total siege” of Bamako, with reports at the time emerging of insurgent units operating openly in some suburbs of the capital. By June 2026, trade and traffic on the Dakar-Bamako corridor had largely plummeted between Kita and Bamako, due to the group’s blockade policy.
According to many observers, the possibility of Mali falling to Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is no longer a question of “if” but “when.”
One al-Qaeda Affiliate is Not Like the Other
Some observers have compared a potential Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin victory in Mali with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s triumph over the Assad regime in Syria. Based on private conversations, some regional security leaders and officials express hope that al-Qaeda’s West African branch is borrowing from the book developed by Ahmed al-Sharaa when he first led al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the Al-Nusrah Front, out of the designated terrorist organization status and into two mergers with other non-al-Qaeda Syrian rebel factions, before ultimately seizing power in Damascus.
The assumption from the narrative that “Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is trying to be Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” is that perhaps, like the Syrian group, the West African movement can be domesticated through proper incentives or will domesticate itself enough to contain its ambitions to Mali, or at worst, swallow Burkina Faso too. While enticing, this conclusion is divorced from reality.
Since subduing the Assad regime, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has pursued a very “status quo” policy and politics. A Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin victory in Bamako is more likely to be a catalyst for the collapse of the existing regional order than it is to produce “Julanism” (as in Abu Muhammad al-Julani, now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa) with West African characteristics.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham spent almost 14 years of the Syrian Civil War iterating from the Syrian proxy of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, to al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, to a coalition of aligned jihadi factions, and then into a broad coalition of Islamist and jihadi groups, before purging itself of the more transnational jihadi elements and adopting a Syrian nationalist yet Islamist orientation, and taking power on that basis.
By contrast, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is rooted in a vision that seeks to upend the regional status quo. Unlike the Syrian group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin not only has explicit transnational aspirations — albeit focused within West Africa — but it is actively pursuing them. Outside its core areas of Mali and Burkina Faso, it has established formations of fighters and carried out attacks in five other West African states: Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria.
Private discussions with local security and diplomatic officials in the region point to a suspicion that the intelligence services of Côte d’Ivoire and Togo have negotiated suspension of hostilities agreements with Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, the same kind of arrangements that the group’s defectors have alleged exist with Benin. These deals are said to explain why both countries have escaped attacks, although Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin forces are present within their borders. Such agreements are not new to the region. For decades, talk has persisted that Mauritania, for example, has a similar arrangement with the State of al-Qaeda Central and its regional affiliates — al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin.
Many security sector officials in the region also believe there’s a substantial Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin support network operating in Senegal. The arrest of over 900 terror suspects in 2024, most of whom are suspected of being affiliated with the group, underscores this belief.
Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin’s leadership has — through the group’s various iterations from its origins in 2012 to its current form — remained consistent in rejecting attempts by local and international actors to reach any form of strategic compromise. These compromises — requested in secret negotiations, some of which I was involved in personally — would have seen the group renounce its allegiance to al-Qaeda and be incorporated into existing power structures.
In private discussions with a wide array of people — including Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin affiliates, local intelligence and military officers, and employees of international humanitarian organizations — I have come to understand that the group’s rank and file are even more radical in their commitment. They reject the notion of post-colonial national borders and see their fight as unfinished until the countries they are fighting in are incorporated into a supranational Islamic state. Thus, it’s difficult to imagine that Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin would accept a “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham-ification” of the group that would abandon its goal of a West African Islamic state and merely settle for an Islamic Emirate of Mali.
Unlike Islamic State’s local affiliates — Islamic State Sahel Province and Islamic State West African Province — Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is a horizontally-integrated coalition of like-minded jihadi groups united in their loyalty to al-Qaeda, their rejection of the Islamic State group, and their desire to establish a regional Islamic state and dismantle the current borders.
While Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin and Islamic State both share the ultimate dream of an Islamic Caliphate — a superstate uniting all Muslims and Muslim lands under one banner — a key difference is that Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (and al-Qaeda in general) see this as a distant aspiration to be achieved as the culmination of a long process that includes local and regional liberations of Muslim communities. On the other hand, the Islamic State group prioritizes establishing that caliphate immediately and imposing its reality, even if it happens without the buy-in of local communities, as it had in Iraq and Syria before losing its strongholds in the two countries, and is currently doing in the Lake Chad region of West Africa.
That focus on incrementalism and localized liberation and establishment of Islamic rule, as well as loyalty to the al-Qaeda brand and leadership, were what brought together Ansarul Islam in Burkina Faso, Ansar Eddine in northern Mali, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib’s Saharan Emirate, part of al-Murabitun, and Katibat Macina in central Mali, uniting Tuaregs, Fulanis, Saharan Arabs, and immigrant Berbers into one supergroup focused on these goals. While disagreements exist within this coalition — as is expected among previously independent groups joined together by choice — shared aspirations ensure they remain united.
There’s no indication that Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin will moderate its ambitions to focus on building an Islamic state within the current internationally recognized Malian borders if it takes power in Bamako. On the other hand, there is evidence —such as the decision to open a front in Nigeria, as reflected in attacks starting in October 2025 — that should it become the ruling authority of Mali, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin will double down on its war effort outside Mali’s borders and continue working toward the long-term goal of collapsing the states of the region to forge the al-Qaeda equivalent of an empire on their ruins.
Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin’s presence in northwest Nigeria was not under pressure from Nigeria’s security forces at the time, nor was it even a priority for Abuja. Instead, the Nigerian military and intelligence services were focused on disrupting joint efforts from the Islamic State Sahel Province and Islamic State West African Province to firm up a growing land bridge between northwest and northeast Nigeria.
It’s possible that continuing to avoid confrontation with the Nigerian Army, as it had done for nearly five years prior, would have benefited Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin more. However, the group still felt obligated to open a new front in northwest Nigeria and take the fight to army units in the area.
A Challenge the Region Cannot Deal With
A Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin that governs an entire state — and remains expansionist and bent on reshaping the regional order by force — is a challenge that no country in the region currently has the capabilities to meet. The smaller states would struggle to contain the group as it exists today — let alone defeat it — and that is before it acquires the fighter pool, tax revenue, and other material advantages that would come with governing Mali.
The Burkina Faso Armed Forces are already contesting over half of Burkina Faso’s territory, mostly against Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, even as the group fights on several other fronts. Free of major fighting in Mali, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin would almost certainly try to overrun Ouagadougou next.
While the United States and France have both backed the Benin Armed Forces against Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (and against Islamic State Sahel Province), Benin is struggling, even though its territory has been only a second-tier priority for the group. It is hard to see how the country would hold its own, especially across its north, should Mali fall.
Nigeria is the only regional player with the potential capacity to take on Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or at least to lead a regional response. However, Nigeria is currently governed by a dysfunctional elite that has so far failed to harness the potential of the region’s richest and most populous country. Today, it is buckling under the weight of its own crises. Bandit militias terrorize civilians and defy state authority in the northwest, the Islamic State West African Province inflicts huge losses to the army in men and materiel in the northeast, and intercommunal violence grinds on in the central part of the country. Saddled with all this, Nigeria has no spare capacity to challenge Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin.
Given these challenges, more assistance from outside the region is likely necessary.
Conclusion
As external powers process the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin offensive in Mali, they should look beyond the reductive framing that it is a humiliation of Russia’s African Corps or the misplaced bets of the Malian junta on Russian support being able to do what French intervention could not achieve. While emotionally satisfying, these narratives will not help in answering the question of how to prepare for a probable Malian state collapse.
External powers — including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and regional states — should begin planning for containment, continuity, and regional stabilization in the event of partial or full state failure. Several initial steps should be taken.
First, priority should shift toward insulating neighboring states — especially Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin — from immediate spillover effects. This means expanding intelligence-sharing and helping local militaries create well-trained, specialized units to function as mobile, quick-reaction groups to blunt cross-border insurgent mobility, instead of undermanned and undertrained special operations formations. The South African-trained Nigerian Strike Force is a historic success story that could be replicated.
French-led training and support missions between 2013 and 2023 suffered from a misplaced focus on mostly training specialized tactical units (special operations forces), while largely neglecting building and sustaining mass within local militaries proficient in infantry tactics. Similarly, E.U. training missions were woefully irrelevant. As recently as 2022, it was not uncommon to see European advisors training locals on basic weapon skills with wooden guns.
Second, Turkey, the United States, and the European Union should assist Mali’s neighbors by establishing funding, training, and equipping pipelines to bolster the size and capability of these countries’ armed forces for territorial defense. Currently, the armies of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso are only 40,000 soldiers strong, respectively. This is too small to find, fix, and finish insurgents, and hold recovered territory, given the size of these countries.
Finally, while Mali is not Syria, West African states can learn from the successful regional cooperation between the Gulf Arab states, Turkey, and Jordan after Assad’s fall, which helped eventually stabilize Syria. Regional cooperation should focus on improving intelligence sharing and creating a funding pool for weapons, equipment, and operational expenses. Where possible, states with better-trained forces and greater capabilities — such as Nigeria and Senegal — should help states with lesser capabilities (e.g., Benin, Guinea, and Niger) through training and advisory missions.
Fulan Nasrullah is a Nigerian national security analyst and contractor who has worked in support roles for mediation and negotiations processes between the Nigerian government and the Islamic State West Africa Province, Boko Haram, and al-Qaeda’s Nigerian affiliate, Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan. He sometimes writes on Substack at The Relevant Information.
The views expressed are the author’s alone and are not representative of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Image: Mark Fischer via Wikimedia Commons
