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Thomas Small
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Rocket Money User Testimonial 2
realize I was wasting $415 a month until I downloaded Rocket Money. I thought I had my finances under control until the app laid out all my spending and categorized it for me. Takeout shopping and unused subscriptions were quietly draining my account and as a result, my savings took a backseat. But Rocket Money doesn't just tell you what you're wasting money on. It takes action to save you money. First, the app looks at your income and monthly expenses and calculates how much you can safely spend each day to stay under budget. Rocket Money also fines and cancels unwanted subscriptions for you, and even negotiates better rates on your bills so you have more money in your pocket. On average, Rocket Money members can save up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Users love the app with over 186,000 five star ratings. It's time to simplify your finances and take control of your Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Cancel RocketMoney.com Cancel the holidays are expensive. You're paying for gifts, travel, decorations, food, and before you know it, you've blown way past what you were planning to spend.
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Thomas Small
Don't.
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- [04:07]
Thomas Small
welcome back to Conflicted Dear listeners. I'm Thomas Small. Amen. You're with me too. How you doing, man?
- [04:13]
Eamon
I'm doing fine, thank you so much. It's been chum busy week as usual in the miserable East.
- [04:21]
Thomas Small
I mean, at least the Middle east has managed to keep itself together for a few days. Which means instead of chasing our tails for a change, trying to keep up with events, we can finally, after so many delays, head back to West Africa.
- [04:36]
Eamon
Indeed. And specifically to the land of ancient cities of knowledge, Timbuktu. Usually, whenever I want to tease my daughter, I used to say to her, listen, if you don't do what I'm telling you. Then I will ship you off to a boarding school in Timbuktu.
- [04:55]
Thomas Small
That's right, dear listeners, we're talking about Mali, which is increasingly a hotbed of jihadist activity. Your old comrades, Eamon.
- [05:05]
Eamon
Indeed, my old comrades.
- [05:07]
Thomas Small
Your old comrades, Al Qaeda. Or at least a network of militant jihadists allied with Al Qaeda. Working under the Al Qaeda banner, they are building quite a reputation for themselves across the Sahel and beyond. And certainly that includes Mali. What do you think, Eamon? Is there a lot to say about this seemingly unimportant little corner of the larger jihadist world?
- [05:31]
Eamon
Well, it might be a corner, but not little at all. I mean, it's Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, parts of southern Algeria, parts of southern Libya. Man, that's the size almost of the European continent. It's not a little corner, man.
- [05:47]
Thomas Small
Well, I can't wait. We're all going to learn a lot and it's going to show us that the problem of jihadism, yes, it has morphed into something different from when you were a global jihadist, Eamon. But it's still here, still with us, still wreaking havoc upon the world, not least in Mali. And for all you dearest listeners, subscribers to the conflicted community, make sure to wait patiently through the credits because you'll get a little something extra from Amon just for you. A reason, everyone, to subscribe to the Conflicted community. Right, let's get into it. Why should we be doing an episode on Al Qaeda in Mali at the beginning of 2026? Well, the answer is that 2025 saw a lot of Al Qaeda action in Mali, which has no doubt laid the ground for even more explosive developments there. When we say Al Qaeda in Mali and the neighborhood, but we're focusing on Mali. We're talking about Jama' at Nusra al Islam ul Muslimin J N I M, the support group for Islam and Muslims. You know, it doesn't have the greatest name in English, Eamon, the support group sounds like something you'd find at your local community center, a group therapy for Islam, Islam and Muslims. Does the name sound more stirring in Arabic?
- [07:13]
Eamon
Yes, you know, and even though in Arabic it's more muted, there is no fighting there, there is no jihad there. It's a Nusra. It's like, okay, we come to your support. It could be military, it could be financially, it could be by, you know, any other mean.
- [07:28]
Thomas Small
Well, today in Mali, the JNIM have an expansive theater of operations across the northern half of the country, certainly where they operate in Relative freedom, really. It seems to me the state is almost entirely absent. But maybe that's overstated. What do you think, Eamon?
- [07:46]
Eamon
No, the state is almost absent. It's been always like this because first of all, how do you control an ocean of sand dunes? It's like Arrakis from the universe of dune. Yeah, I mean it's literally millions of dunes there. There are more dunes than people. I'm not kidding. Seriously, there are more sand dunes than people. How do you govern this? It's impossible.
- [08:10]
Thomas Small
Taking advantage of this absence of state power, JNIM are growing bold. In 2024, they and a coalition of Tuareg Berber separatists, the two together scored a victory against the Malian government and Russia backed Wagner Group mercenaries. This opened up the way to the Malian capital Bamako, where JNIM launched a surprise attack on the city's airport and a military barracks. Then last July 2025, they launched a series of simultaneous attacks in towns and cities in the west of Mali, near and on the border with Senegal. They also targeted towns on the border with Mauritania and have even been threatening to lay siege to towns they say are too closely aligned with the central government. So just Last month, on the 23rd of December, just before Christmas, the leader of Burkina Faso, who along with Mali and Niger formed the alliance of Sahel states in 2023, he announced the launch of a joint battalion and that large scale counterextremism operations would follow in a matter of days. But it is hard to know what's really going on. The government in Bamako says they've scored some significant victories over jihadist insurgents, claiming last summer to have killed 80 militants and which doesn't sound like a huge number really. Eamon, how many armed men are in JNIM? Are we talking thousands?
- [09:38]
Eamon
We estimate between anywhere between 8 and 11,000.
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Thomas Small
That's a lot of men.
- [09:43]
Eamon
Exactly. Because why? Because it is not just only Berbert warigs from Azawad. Also they have Fulani tribes. That is the both problem and advantage, depending on which side you are in of Islamist ideologies, is that they present themselves as a unifier of different tribes and ethnic and linguistic groups. And so they say, well, you know, how do we unite, you know, Fulani, Zimbabas? Well, we're all Muslims, brother, you know, so this is how they do it, you know.
- [10:13]
Thomas Small
Well, listen, Eamon, we could analyze recent events ad infinitum, but as we're always saying on conflicted, you can't understand the present without understanding the past. Now, in season five, we did two episodes on French West Africa. And in the second of those two episodes, we did speak about Al Qaeda in Mali, though mainly through the prism of French intervention and Russian interference in the country. Some of what we talk about today will overlap with last year's episode, but this time around, we're going to be telling the story from the jihadists point of view. How does that sound? Eamon, are you on board?
- [10:48]
Eamon
Of course I am. It's a trip down memory lane because some of the founders of this movement were with us in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
- [10:56]
Thomas Small
Oh, how exciting. Well, like so much else, dear listeners, the story begins in the Algerian civil war. It's a complicated tale which we've told before back in season three. So for now, it's enough to say that starting in the early 90s, a coalition of jihadist militias called the Armed Islamic Group came together to fight the Algerian government. As the 90s unfolded, as is often the case, factions arose within the organization gia, as this coalition was known. A group of GIA commanders defected and formed a breakaway faction called the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat, the gspc. The GSPC is the direct predecessor of a group that would eventually be known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a foundational component of JNIM today.
- [11:52]
Eamon
Yes, the GSPC established itself formally in 1998 out of the ashes of the GIA. The GIA were the first predecessor of ISIS, and we talked about it basically and its brutality in the Algeria episode. Go back and listen to it. Abdurrahma Habab, who was the leader of the GSPC, he was actually like in the 1990s in Afghanistan and these places, like I returned there and decided to establish a group that is far more conciliatory towards the Algerian people, but still fighting against the Algerian military. And that was 1998. By 2003, he and his commanders decided that it's time to align with Al Qaeda, because now it's becoming the new shiny brand of jihadism across the globe.
- [12:37]
Thomas Small
The GSPC didn't pledge alliance to al Qaeda until September 2003, two years after 9 11. And they would rebrand as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb only in 2007. The this is a sign that really deep down, jihadism in North Africa and the Sahel, and especially the Sahel, is less a question of global aims and more a question of regional geopolitics, even anti colonial politics, more in line with the dynamics of the first Algerian civil war against the French or with more local Islamist struggles against secular dictatorship. Though the jihadists of AQIM and its successor groups were happy to hitch their wagon to to Bin Laden's banner out of opportunism.
- [13:24]
Eamon
And in 2007, Abd Rahma Hatab, his successor, Abu Mus' Abdel Wadud, known as Trukdel, his real name, he's an Algerian Berber from the north, from Tiziwizu actually, of all places. Trukdel decided to rebrand it as aqim and for two years they focused their operations mainly in the northern parts, the coastal parts of Algeria, especially Tiziwizu and the Kabail areas as they call them, the tribal Tamazik areas. But that did not work well for them at all.
- [13:56]
Thomas Small
That's true. Even before 9 11, the focus of the GSPC, which became AL Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, was becoming less on northern Algeria and more and more on the Sahara. The group invested in smuggling, kidnapping and cross border mobility in a very lawless desert zone where the central state struggled to extend its reach. It was perfect for training camps, for hiding hostages, for negotiating ransoms. Northern Mali emerged as a key rear base in the early 2000s. And an important figure in this development, Eamon was Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Now as you know Eamon, he was born in Central Algeria in 1972. He fought in Afghanistan in his late teens and early twenties.
- [14:43]
Eamon
He was well known there. He was well known, a legend.
- [14:46]
Thomas Small
He eventually joined the gia in the 90s. He, he became very adept at criminal activity, especially stealing vehicles from oil companies and setting up cross border smuggling networks. He became the GIA's emir of the Sahara in 1995. A reward, it is said, for carrying out the executions of five expatriate workers of the Algerian national oil company Sonatruk. It was through Belmokhtar that links were first forged with Al Qaeda and through some adroit politicking, especially through marriage alliances. He was very good at this. He built political and social ties in northern Mali. So you see Amon, even before the emergence of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, for many years these GIA GSPC affiliated commanders, jihadists were creating networks into the Sahel and northern Mali.
- [15:43]
Eamon
Indeed, you know, in my opinion, Mukhtar B. Mukhtar, no, I was aid. Like, I mean he was a privateer. He was the ultimate pirate of the sand dune oceans of the Sahel, which means the coast, which is really weird, like in a foreign desert. However, when he left the gia he was still a privateer. He was his own man for a Long time. Even after the creation of the AQIM in Northern Algeria in 2007, he was not exactly very much in touch with them. He was more in touch actually with the Shabab in Somalia and with Al Qaeda in Nigeria than with actually AQIM in Algeria. But that will change around 2008, when things started to look bad for AQIM in northern Algeria.
- [16:34]
Thomas Small
Before we get there, we need to introduce another guy, someone Bel Mokhtar worked closely with, another Saharan jihadist field commander loosely connected with these privateers. You know, this is the point, dear listeners, that at this stage, there were a lot of private jihadist actors, which already sheds a lot of light on what the jihadist scene in the Sahel and in the Sahara and in Northern Africa really is. There's a lot of opportunism involved. But this guy, a guy called Abu Zayd.
- [17:02]
Eamon
Yes.
- [17:02]
Thomas Small
Belmokhtar was working closely with him, Abu Zayd, to establish kidnapping and hostage ransom operations, which became an increasingly successful source of revenue for Al Qaeda in the Sahara. As early as 2003, Germany is said to have ransomed a group of kidnapped tourists for 5 million euros. And all in the funds raised from kidnappings in those early years may have reached $100 million. Ransoms from kidnapping. Amon is a big part of the story of Al Qaeda in the Sahel and in northern Mali.
- [17:39]
Eamon
As someone who worked on counterterrorism finance for years, it is the bane of my existence. I've been talking in one conference after another at that time as do not pay. You know, I used to tell every government and every company and every insurance company. I don't want to mention some names here, but do not pay. You pay, people will die. You arm them with 100 million bullets that would kill 100,000 innocent Africans just to release one white hostage. I'm sorry about that, Lakina. Basically, I don't want to bring race into it, but it seems that Lakina, basically, ah, our people, we can't leave anyone behind. Well, I'm sorry. Let them die. So we dry this swamp completely. I'm sorry, Lakina. I mean, we cannot, you know, so it was a bane of my existence for a while.
- [18:29]
Thomas Small
Yeah, I can imagine. Well, basically, we've got these privateers working. Mokhtar, Belmokhtar, he's expanding his network. Abu Zayd working together somewhat with Belmokhtar, expanding his network, creating the conditions for successful kidnapping and ransom operations as they grow. Now, before we launch into the story in a big way, we need to talk About a third man. This man assumed leadership of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2004. You've mentioned him already. Ayman Abdel Melek Drukdel Abu Musaaba Abdel Wadud, his alias. He was born in 1970 in northern Algeria. So same generation. He studied mathematics. He became a militant in the early 90s. And amen. Distinguished himself as a bomb maker. Who does that remind me of?
- [19:16]
Eamon
Yeah, I can't think of someone. Goodness lucky now. Ah, well, I see you're looking at me. Okay, fine. AQIM were born out of financial necessity. They started negotiating with Al Qaeda to get the name. To get the rights to the name, to the franchise, you know, from the headquarters. But the headquarters said, we will give you the rights to use the name. But the finance is not gonna come from us. It's gonna come from Zarqawi in Iraq because he has the money. At the time, like, I mean, it was AQI or Al Qaeda in Iraq that actually had the money. And so they were negotiating with the Zarqawi in the middle of 2006. Like, you know, we're gonna now announce that we are Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and we need funds. Oh, yeah, of course. Go ahead and do it. But then Zarqawi is dead. Abu Hamza Mohajer takes over. And when it was time, and they have announced, hey, we are now aqim. We need the second batch of money. You know, Zarqawi gave them initially about $5 million, but of course, by 2007, AQI couldn't provide any money anymore because they were dealing with the US Surge in Iraq. So that affected the budget and the finances of aqim.
- [20:26]
Thomas Small
It's interesting, this link to Zarqawi as the group in Algeria, in the Sahel, in Mali, et cetera, is growing, there was a sort of tension about the course it would. And Druktel Abdelmelek Druktel, who assumed leadership, as I say, of AQIM in 2004. He felt at least that he had learned from the mistakes of the GIA in Algeria and tried to steer AQIM onto a moderate course. So he wanted to avoid the excessive tech fearism that is often. He knew the death knell for jihadist groups. He must have then thought, like, ooh, you know, Zarqawi is taking things in a really radical direction. But as AQIM expanded southward into the Sahel, jihadist units ignored his warnings against excessive takfirism and brutality. And as the group grew, Amon it became notorious for being quite brutal.
- [21:19]
Eamon
Now we have to say why. Actually they went from the north to the south. First of all, like in a. Basically it's the economy, stupid. Again, we come back to money. Al Qaeda and Iraq stopped paying them by late 2007 because of the General Petraeus surge in Iraq. So you can see how an event 4,000 kilometers, kilometers away, like, you know, have an effect there. Like, I mean, so they have no money. And because they have no money, the money was being made in the south, in the Sahel, where not only the kidnap for ransom was taking place, but also illicit trade in commodities, in contrabands, sometime in narcotics, although they were not doing it themselves, but they were guarding the caravans of narcotics. So Drukdel Amin was forced by two facts here, lack of funds, but also that the Algerian military and the Algerian military intelligence found an opportunity here. Killing them is so tough and it will take years. How about we make them the desert problem, someone else's problem? And suddenly they started to channel them cleverly into an area called Tassili Najer, which is near the Libyan Algerian border in the desert. That backfired a little bit when they attacked some of the natural gas fields there. But nonetheless they continued in their migration southward because that's where first the money is, the allies is. And also they found a fertile ground for their jihadist preaching between, as you said, 2009 all the way until 2012, 2013, they found in the Tuareg a perfect vessel for their preaching.
- [22:58]
Thomas Small
So now you can see, dear listeners, that by 2012, Al Qaeda was already firmly involved in northern Mali through smuggling, through kidnapping networks. When during a Tuareg rebellion that year, the central government, the Malian government, withdrew from the area. And working from behind the scenes, AQIM supported a number of other jihadist aligned actors to defeat the Tuareg separatists and to take control of of northern Mali. And a jihadist emirate emerged there. But the emirate was not unified. Different power centers emerged around different commanders.
- [23:38]
Eamon
Now that the armed forces of Mali, belonging to the government in Bamako, withdrew from the north and the so called Islamic emirates were established there with the support of aqim, differences emerged between these commanders, or shall I say what they really are, Privateers, these jihadi privateers, the pirates of the desert ocean. There they started to see things differently. Mukhtar Bin Mukhtar decided to become the new Zarqawi of northeast Mali. And he established Jama' at Tawheed Al Jihad and Jama' at Tuhedul Jihad. It means in Arabic, the monotheism and jihad group. And Mukhtar bin Mukhtar decided to become the new Zarqawi because when Zarqawi started in Iraq in 2004, his group was known as Jamaat Tuhij Al Jihad too, before they became Al Qaeda. And in the northwest of Mali, we have someone else emerging, you know, the longtime ally and comrade, another privateer of Mukhtar Bin Mukhtar, Abu Zaid. Abu Zayd now started a new group there, which is Ansar Din, the protectors of the faith. So the protectors of the faith were far harsher even because they went after the Sufis, destroying their shrines, imposing ISIS like mentality. So it's like, if you think Jama' Atul Haidul Jihad, like, I mean, for Mukhtar and Mukhtar were crazies. I mean, Abu Zaid was even more crazier than him. And that's all to do with the fact that they were both Algerians. Sorry, my Algerian friends who are listening to this episode, I think the 99% of listeners who met Algerians before and dealt with them before knows that there is that kind of tendency towards rough dealing. Basically, when they come to power, it's like no mercy. And this, of course, basically was shooting themselves in the foot. And we will see why.
- [25:25]
Thomas Small
So you have this emirate that emerged, and then within the emirate, these privateers, these commanders, begin carving out their own corners. Belmokhtar in the northeast, Abu Zayd in the northwest. There were others. And though this guy, Abdelmelek Druktel, was nominally the leader of the whole movement, his more moderate approach was largely ignored. And so when the French intervened in 2013, the emirate swiftly collapsed. So that internal fighting and squabbling meant that the emirate was weak and it collapsed. However, in the face of this setback, the different commanders in AQIM eventually avoided pronouncing takfir against each other. And by 2015 or so, they had made up Belmokhtar had founded a new group called Al Murabi Tun, named after the 11th century Almoravid dynasty that governed Morocco and Spain. He formed Al Marabi Tun from the remnants of his old movement for monotheism and jihad and from other loyalists within aqim. So the emirates been smashed, but they're bringing it back together. They began conducting high profile attacks in Algeria, Niger and Mali. They were a sort of mobile strike force. Less focused on creating on the ground governance, more focused on raids, kidnappings, terrorist spectacles. The internal workings of the Almorabi Tun were pretty chaotic and eventually it split when ISIS arrived on the scene, leading Belmokhtar himself to re pledge allegiance to Al Qaeda. I mean, those years, 10 years ago now, Ayman, when ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates across the Islamic world were fighting, including in the Sahel, those years were seminal and cast a long shadow, didn't they?
- [27:08]
Eamon
Indeed. Because backs of werewolves are fighting each other. Surprise, surprise, when hyenas are gonna come to the carcass of an elephant, what do you think they're gonna do? Especially when there are two or three packs of them. In my opinion, the entry of ISIS into the Sahel region was more like the large rock that was dropped into a pond and it created all of that ripple effect. And don't forget Boko Haram, Eyes and isis. And they had a significant impact on. I want to say that the moderation of the views in Mali, specifically among Mali and jihadists, it did moderate their views. It's like the horrors that ISIS and Boko Haram did in Nigeria was the catalyst towards moderating their views on who's a kafir and who's not. Lucky. I'm not saying it's like, you know, basically, do they eat you for dinner or lunch? Like, you know, that's the difference. Like, you know, I mean, I'm not saying moderate as in liberal. Yeah.
- [27:59]
Thomas Small
We'll be doing episodes on Boko Haram very soon. Now we're focusing on Mali. We're going to take a quick commercial break and when we get back, having established the Al Qaeda background, we're going to switch focus a bit onto northern Mali itself, its post colonial history, its ethnic strife and the role played there by an economic and social institution with deep roots in that region. Slavery.
- [28:29]
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- [29:05]
Thomas Small
We're back. Eamon and I are talking about Al Qaeda and jihadism in northern Mali, but we really should talk more about northern Mali. Eamon. Historically, that part of the Sahel was controlled by Tuareg or Berber elites. During the French colonial period, the French ruled indirectly through these elites. And in the Post colonial period, the Malian state was weak. And taking advantage of this, in 1963, the Berber elites in the north rose up in revolt, which was suppressed violently by the government in Bamako, and I mean really violently, including collective punishment through the mass slaughtering of livestock to erode the economy, to create famine. They poisoned wells. It was all terrible, and it caused lasting social trauma. It also led to some extent to the emancipation of the black African slaves whom the Tuaregs had held in bondage from for centuries. So let's talk about slavery in Mali. Amon. Even today, the Al Qaeda, or jihadist situation in Mali involves slavery. And the past 15 years or so have seen a steady reversal of whatever progress was made in abolishing slavery in that part of the world.
- [30:28]
Eamon
Indeed, unfortunately, that part of the world, from Mauritania all the way to Chad. So everything between Darfur and Shanghit in Mauritania, sandwiched between the North Africa states and the West Africa states, unfortunately did not see the end of slavery. And that was clear. I remember my own brother when he used to work for a charitable organization in Saudi Arabia, and that was in the late 90s. He told me a story that he was part of a mission, because in Saudi Arabia, if you end up murdering someone, whether deliberately or not, one of the ways in which you can be forgiven is to free a slave. So basically, they used to collect a huge amount of money in order to go and free slaves in places like Mauritania, eastern Senegal, and some parts of Mali. And he told me the story that. I mean, there was one slave where, you know, he was in his 60s and he was freed. And he reacted to being freed in a very, very weird way. He started pouring sand on his head and said, what have you done? Where am I going to?
- [31:35]
Thomas Small
It shows how deeply, deeply rooted slavery is there as an institution. I mean, some organizations. Amen today put the figure as high as 800,000 slaves in that region, with around 200,000 living under direct control of, quote, unquote, masters. And slavery in Mali is racialized. It's often described as ethnic, but in fact, Arabs, Tuareg and the Fulani are locally regarded and regard themselves as white, basically, while Sange, Bambara and Dogon, these other people, are seen as black. So there's a racial element to slavery in this part of the world as well.
- [32:14]
Eamon
Exactly. Because the Arabs, the twargs and the Fulanis, to varying degrees, are, you know, fairer skin. They're lighter, a shade of brown. The much darker shade of brown are the people who would be subject to slavery and to be hunted and to be put into chains and basically sold and controlled for whatever reason. What do they do? I mean, someone asked me like another question before, like, what do these slaves do there? They do the smuggling, the mining, the digging, you know, basically all the menial jobs. And this is just only about the men. And I don't want to go to the women. The women is even worse. And so unfortunately, it is a. A rather grim situation there.
- [32:54]
Thomas Small
Yes, it's tragic. And you know, Al Qaeda and its jihadist networks and other kind of jihadist groups in that part of the world take advantage of slavery. Any progress that the Malian state had made in destroying that institution or ameliorating it somehow has gone in reverse under the strong rule of Al Qaeda and its allies. It's a shame. Now to cut to the question of northern Mali and its history. To cut a very long story short, Tuareg separatism having broken out in 1963, having been crushed by the government, it returned to Mali with a bang in the 90s when another rebellion broke out. Though in the end it led to the fragmentation of the Tuareg armed groups and the decline of Pan Tuareg political unity. A national pact signed in 1992 led Tuareg elites to enter electoral politics. But on the ground in northern Mali, the decline of the traditional structures of this Tuareg elite power allowed new religious voices to enter the scene and destabilize the mainly Maliki influenced, Sufi based character of the Islam practiced there. Salafism was on the rise. Transnational Islamism as an ideology began to replace Pan Tuareg politics as a means of people to mobilize and express their political discontent. And a man called Iyad Al Ghali symbolizes this transition.
- [34:22]
Eamon
Well, Iyad Al Ghali is a interesting figure because for at warg, he was somewhat of an internationalist in a sense. He was born 1958 to a prominent aristocratic, not ruling family within the Tuareg ethnicity. And then he moved to Libya in order to join the Gaddafi Islamic League youth. It's like the Muslim youth of Gaddafi, but with religious zeal. He went to fight in Lebanon in the civil war there. Then he went to fight in Chad alongside the Libyan army against the forces of Chad and the French Foreign Legion. So it's not the first time he ever fought against the French. And then of course, when he moved back into northern Mali, back to his family, he was treated like kind of, wow, look at this man. Like, basically a veteran of two wars and have seen the world, you know, somewhat. And that's why Lakhna, he was involved in the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s. He was part of the. After the failure of it, he was part of the national pact. And that made him like, a figure of reverence in a sense. Like, you know, basically, he became an obvious leading figure because of his military and political experience. And when the Tabligh Jama', at, many people will understand who we talk about, but many listeners wouldn't know exactly what I'm talking about. So basically, there is this Deobandi group, like, and we talked about what Deoband is. It's a school of religious thought, Hanafi, in India and Pakistan. And the Tabligh Jama' at are a missionary group that is very influential across the Muslim world. They are Deobandi, mostly from Pakistan.
- [35:58]
Thomas Small
They're explicitly apolitical and non jihadist. I think we need to make clear they're a more exactly quietist Islamist movement.
- [36:05]
Eamon
It's like Jehovah's Witnesses. They are like, basically like the people who would knock on your door and do you have time to talk about the Lord, you know, that kind of thing.
- [36:11]
Thomas Small
Yeah. And they came to northern Mali. They had a network of missions there. And Iyad Ali was able to use this network to get some, like, religious capital to burnish his new politics.
- [36:21]
Eamon
Exactly. That was more opportunistic. It's like, hey, I have these people, you know, they are well known, trusted. No one can label them as extremists because they are not. They are just like, you know, poor missionaries. That's what they are. And so he took advantage of this missionary position. Sorry, a dad joke.
- [36:41]
Thomas Small
Oh, terrible.
- [36:45]
Eamon
And decided, like, you know, I mean, that this is how he can, like, increase his intellectual and political offspring across Mali.
- [36:53]
Thomas Small
And then. And this is where, you know, dear listeners, and I know it's a complicated story, but this is really where the two sides begin to come together. We established the Al Qaeda side that was based in northern Algeria. Now we've been talking about northern Mali, its Tuareg background. Yad Al Khali, a Tuareg politician who becomes an Islamist politician out of opportunism. And in 2012, he founds this group, Ansar Ad Din, which allied with one of those Algerians, Abu Zayd, became notoriously hard line, destroying Sufi shrines, imposing Sharia law with great rigor. So this Ansaruddin, a Tuareg Islamist jihadist group working closely with Abu Zayd and Al Qaeda, founded by Yad Al Ghali. It's all an example, Ayman, of that shift that occurred across the 90s and naughties away from nationalist politics, away from ethno nationalist politics, towards Islamist politics in Mali.
- [37:47]
Eamon
Indeed. Because at the end of the day, what is Iyad Al Ghali really? If we go and dig deep into his heart, an Islamist, a jihadist? Is he basically some sort of an ideological Salafist? The answer is none of the above. What he is at the core of his heart is a cold, calculating politician.
- [38:10]
Thomas Small
Yes, like more Islamist jihadist leaders than we often think, they're not all ideologically convicted. They use Islamism where it suits them, especially in these more regional contexts like the one that Yad Al Ghali is working in now. Someone with a background similar to Al Ghali and who also exemplifies this shift to Islamist and jihadist politics is Amadou Kufa. He was born sometime in the 50s in the region around Timbuktu in northern central Mali. And Kufa is a Fulani, which is important.
- [38:42]
Eamon
Ahmadu Kufa, he wasn't at Warg, you know, he was from the Fulani ethnicity, and he was from a young age a student of the Quran, you know, where you have these little mosques and the little corners where they study Quran and Arabic. And I think he was good at it, as far as we are told. But also at the same time, when he grew up, apart from being a religious preacher, he was a singer, which is weird and which is even more weird. He was a satirist, a comedian, a man after my heart, I must say. He must have told lots of dad jokes in his career. But we are told that around 2012, he shifted, you know, again through an affiliation with Tabligh e Jama', at, just like with Iyal Ghali. He shifted from the Sufi Maliki school of thought into Salafism. He became more and more extremist. And that's when he joined forces with Eyad Al Ghali.
- [39:36]
Thomas Small
And this combination, he had built up a reputation as a preacher. He himself, through meeting Iyad Al Ghali, talking to him, becomes more jihadist in his orientation. And after the jihadist Emirate is smashed in 2013 following the French intervention. So now the story's coming together, dear listeners. Kufa reemerges as the leader of Katibet Makina, or the Makina Liberation Front, Makina being an important center of Fulani Islam in central Mali. So through the Katibat, Makina, Kufa oversees a campaign of bottom up Fulani dominated jihadism in central Mali. Central Mali becomes the most violent region in Mali. And this bottom up form of jihadism meant that increasingly community militias kill more civil organized jihadists. This is part of the story of jihadism in Mali. Amen. We remember back then Timbuktu being the center of a lot of violence. And it was sometimes hard to make out what was exactly going on because there were these overlapping dimensions. Jihadism, obviously, but also the Fulani dimension, inter ethnic dimension. And it was particularly brutal there because it was ground up, it was unorganized, it was violent.
- [40:51]
Eamon
Indeed. However, the problem with jihad, Jihad in my opinion, is like a gun. You give it to a trained, disciplined person and you have a security guard. You give it to a child and you have a massacre. You give it to a crazy person and you have a bloodbath. And that's the reality. Jihad is not an instrument to be given to every individual in the community. And that's why peasants are not supposed to be the guardians of jihad.
- [41:21]
Thomas Small
Also, in the name of jihad, peasant communities with long standing ethnic or other grievances or feuds have a justification for being violent, for energizing the violence, activating the violence that already was in their hearts.
- [41:34]
Eamon
Exactly. Jihad is a loaded gun and you don't give it basically to people with intellectual limitations. I'm sorry to say that, but we have to accept this fact.
- [41:43]
Thomas Small
So here's the thing, dear listeners. We have done our best now to set up the scene. The whole point of all of this has been to explain where jnim, the support group for Islam and Muslims, came from. By 2017, in Mali and neighboring areas, there were basically the following four Jihadist Ansar al Din, the one founded by Iyad Al Ghali, with a base of operations in the far northeast Al Murabi Tunnel, the one founded by Belmokhtar, with no base really. It roamed widely across northern Mali and all the border zones in the Sahel, the Makina Liberation Front, the one founded by Ahmadu Kufa, with a base of operations in rural central Mali, especially the inner Niger Delta, among the Fulani people especially, and what remained of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in the Sahara and the Sahil. So we have these four sort of dimensions, these four movements which merged in 2017 into JNIM. Its leader was declared as Iyad Al Ghali. Quite a journey, Ayman, from serving in Gaddafi's African Legion and a stint as a Tuareg separatist to being the leader of what was now the most prominent jihadist governing authority in Africa.
- [43:07]
Eamon
Ah, well, it's a good career progression, basically. I give it to him. What an interesting cv.
- [43:11]
Thomas Small
He is an opportunist, as you say. I mean, he's a good politician.
- [43:15]
Eamon
Exactly. And that's, I think, when things got worse and worse for the central government in Mali. We have to explain one thing here, which always has been the theme since day one of this podcast. This is exactly what happened when the nation state fails in its duty towards the people. The listeners must be asking themselves why all of this is happening. Where are the leaders in Bamaku? Well, the leaders in Bamaku, most of them have nice apartments in Paris, in Lyon, in Nice. That's the reality.
- [43:57]
Thomas Small
And in the context of this decline of the nation state, you know, we talked about this in our episode last year. We talked about the coups that plagued Mali and the other Sahel states. We talked about the Wagner group and Russia's intervention into the region. We talked about France and its failure to get control. We talked about all that. You know, we don't want to repeat ourselves too much, but since you brought it up, and I think it's an important dimension, Eamon, it's only fair to say that because all of this rising jihadism took place in a context of weak and incompetent and corrupt central government, there was no central government. And where pre Islamist politics, like the Tuareg nationalist politics had failed to redress people's legitimate complaints, Islamism and jihadism flowed in. And to some extent, you know, though harsh, though totally illiberal, of course, the governance that JNIM is sometimes providing people, and this now includes tax gathering, arbitration of disputes, regulating local markets, all that stuff. From one point of view, it could be said that a lot of ordinary people are more or less satisfied with the governance that JNIM is providing. Is this an uncomfortable dimension of Jnim, that actually in its own way, it produces justice where there was none before?
- [45:16]
Eamon
That's the problem with demons. They scare away the devils. That's one and two. They do really provide security if you are on their good side. As long as you don't rise up against them, as long as you don't complain about how they run things, life could be easier. Because what do you prefer? Chaos with no demons or a ordered society, Safe society, but with demons.
- [45:39]
Thomas Small
But as you say, Aemon, there are demons and there are devils. Because there's another even more uncomfortable dimension to this story, which is because the Malian government has been so dysfunctional the state has relied on local ethnic clan based militias to fight the jihadists. But these militias, maybe because they are formed around ethnic loyalties, are often way more brutal than the jihadists. JNIM benefits from this. They don't need to do the killing. Local ethnic animosities break out. Killing of civilians happens, and JNIM can come in afterward and establish justice of a kind. This dynamic is really tough indeed.
- [46:24]
Eamon
And that's exactly why when you fall into the trap of using ethnic militias, just like what happened in Syria, just like what happened in other places, like, I mean, you rely on a certain ethnic group in order to fight against devils. Like, basically today's demons are tomorrow's devils. And that's exactly why we need to be careful when it comes to counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. I do believe personally that the days of sending the tanks, aircrafts and everything, like, basically might not be over yet. But maybe we should introduce a softer element here, which is, how about we negotiate? Because at the end of the day, you appeal to the politicians inside the hearts of these demons. You know, hey, you might be a demon, but you are a political demon. You know, so let's talk.
- [47:12]
Thomas Small
That sets up. You know what I wanted to ask you really, to bring this episode on Al Qaeda or jihadism in Mali to a close. At the beginning of the episode, we did talk about the destabilizing effects of jihadist activity in the country at the moment. But it is hard to know what's really going on because Eamon. Over the past year, JNIM has come to combine classic insurgent violence with economic and political pressure against the state. In June, it launched a series of coordinated assaults on Malian army positions, including a devastating attack in bulikesi where over 100 soldiers were killed and bases overrun, and simultaneous operations around Timbuktu that struck both army posts and logistical infrastructure. More recently, JNIM has adopted a kind of economic blockade strategy. A fuel blockade, which it has been imposing on Bamako since last September, has attacked and or destroyed 130 oil tankers earlier this month. It has sealed off major highways bringing fuel into Bamako, setting up checkpoints that demand taxes. This has paralyzed the capital's economy and pushed the population into hardship. A kind of pressure campaign that isn't just about territory but is about undercutting the state's ability to function. JNIM is targeting the state. The blockade has prompted calls from the African Union and international actors for urgent cooperation and intelligence sharing to prevent Mali from sliding into full collapse. Under insurgent pressure, on 5 January, reports emerged of a jihadist attack on the Morilla gold mine in Mali, which the government took over last year and which a US mining company won the concession for seven employees were taken hostage. The question really is, can Jnim be defeated militarily? That has certainly proven elusive so far. The French couldn't achieve it. I don't know if anyone really could. Do you think Emon, Mali as a sovereign state can still be preserved? What would preserved even mean now?
- [49:19]
Eamon
No, it's gonna be preserved in its natural borders, like the borders that they are there, like the official ones. But at some point, for better and worse, just allow Jnim to go into Bamako and just take over. Do you remember I was talking to you a while ago and.
- [49:35]
Thomas Small
Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, Ayman, I misunderstood you. Are you saying you think Jnim should conquer the country?
- [49:40]
Eamon
Yes.
- [49:42]
Thomas Small
Holy shit. I did not expect this conclusion.
- [49:45]
Eamon
Yeah, yeah. In my opinion, the kindest solution now as an end to the bloodshed is just to allow Jnim to take over the entire country. You know, enter Bamako and take it. I know, I know, I know. Many listeners will be screaming at me saying, like, you know, basically, Ayman, what the hell are you talking about? But, guys, just like the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, it was so speedy, basically. But there was 20 years of mistakes that paved that way for it, and there were no way to rectify these mistakes. And the same thing here. How do you defeat, as Frank Herbert always put it, the power of the desert? How do you defeat a ideological, religious fervor coming out of the desert, and especially the Saharan desert, the greatest, biggest desert in the world, with people who's been ancient there 6,000 years of ancient history, when they become the vessel basically for Islamism and jihadism, how do you defeat them without committing genocide yourself? And at the end of the day, if they have proven since 2017 that they have been able to moderate their rather bloodthirsty nature and have they proven this?
- [50:46]
Thomas Small
It doesn't seem that they've proven that to an extent.
- [50:49]
Eamon
I'm saying basically to an extent. But they have been reaching out to people like me, basically, and others.
- [50:57]
Thomas Small
I think maybe friend of the show, Waseem Nasser, probably as well would know that these groups now are groups, frankly, that you gotta deal with. Although, Ayman, it makes me so uncomfortable sometimes. I'll tell you this, Ayman, sometimes people tell me, you know, your friend Ayman, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. He's still a jihadist he supports the jihadists. That's why he's supporting Ahmed Ashar. And now you're saying Jnim should take over Mali. Part of me is like, are they right? Is Eamon just working all along as a triple agent on behalf of the Islamists?
- [51:29]
Eamon
I'm a tiger in cat's clothing. Look. No, I'm a realist. I'm a pragmatist. I'm a monarchist. I want to make kings out of these people. I want to actually bring them back into the human nature, basically, and make them kings. I want to make Ahmad Al Shara a king. I want to make Iyad Al Ghali a king of the kingdom of Timbuktu and Bamakul, basically. I want to create that series of kingdoms and sultanates where we bring finally, good governance away from ideology and into pragmatism. I'm not a jihadist. I'm a pragmatist. And I see the world not in black and white, but with the 6 billion colors that are scientifically proven that exist between black and white. At the end of the day, we have to see the nuance here. Riyad Al Ghali could be the new Ahmed Al Shara, and we could rehabilitate him, and we could rehabilitate the entire place if we put Mali on a new political social contract with a sultanate of Timbuktu, meaning reborn again. Because what could be worse than the current incompetent, corrupt, and bloodthirsty government in Bamaku? They are devils, as opposed to the demons that are on the other side.
- [52:38]
Thomas Small
Well, dear listeners, honestly, I'm as surprised as you are to hear Eamon so forthrightly state that view. I mean, I find it really interesting. I don't have the knowledge enough to contradict. Just goes to show, at the very least, that there has been chaos across the Muslim world for decades now. Out of that chaos, maybe it's true that something closer to the traditional governance structures that governed the Islamic world for so long might be a solution. Perhaps a bit of modernization might come to play in that. But the traditional structures of an emirate, a monarchical structure linked to some kind of Sunni jurisprudence, maybe that's the solution. Oh, my God. Think of all those modernizers in the Muslim world. They'll be rolling over, over in their graves to hear it.
- [53:22]
Eamon
At the end of the day, Thomas, it doesn't matter what I say. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what the many dear listeners who are screaming at me right now say what gonna matter is that this Ramadan, the window between late February, late March, that's when the JNIM is gonna overrun Bamako and they will complete and seal their entire takeover of the country. It's inevitable. Trying to cry about it and say, I'm a monster, I'm a jihadist, I'm a tiger in a cat's clothing. Like basically it doesn't matter. Better let's be pragmatist and let's make it as least painful for the people who will be conquered. But they will be conquered because of the incompetence of the government in Bamako.
- [54:01]
Thomas Small
Well, if you're right, Eamon and JNIM does become the governing authority in all of Mali, you can be grateful, dear listeners, that you heard our best attempt at summarizing in more or less an hour, a very complicated background story to this group which emerged out of all sorts of different splinters of and factions and movements within the greater jihadist and Sahel nationalist world to form itself. And you know, maybe it will become the new ruling power in Mali. Thank you, Eamon. It's been illuminating as always. Listen everyone, don't forget, if you have subscribed to the Conflicted Community, just stay with us through the credits because you'll get a teeny weeny bit more about Mali just for you. A reason, everyone, once again to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. Until then, goodbye everyone.
- [54:47]
Eamon
Goodbye.
- [54:50]
Thomas Small
Conflicted is a message heard Production Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzie Andrews.