Why Mali's northern conflict has entered a dangerous new phase

A new alliance between a separatist movement and an al-Qaeda affiliate has altered the conflict in northern Mali and complicated efforts to end the war. The joint offensive launched on 25 April 2026 by the Azawad Liberation Front and Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin has stretched across Kidal, Anefis, Tilemsi, Gao and Sevare. It has also posed one of the most serious challenges to the Malian army in years, as well as to Russia's Africa Corps, which replaced the Wagner Group in Mali.

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Since the offensive began, the fighting has included simultaneous assaults, ambushes, drone strikes and attacks on military convoys. All sides have claimed battlefield gains, but the reporting provided does not confirm a single verified tally of territory held or losses sustained. Bamako says it is working to restore state authority and dismantle what it calls a terrorist alliance between the two armed groups.

The separatist movement says it remains committed to independence for Azawad, while the al-Qaeda affiliate says it is fighting to liberate Mali and overthrow the government. The scale of the confrontation matters because it brings together two actors with very different political goals. The Azawad Liberation Front seeks independence for northern Mali, a demand that has long shaped the country's conflict dynamics.

Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, by contrast, frames the war as part of a wider insurgency against the state and its foreign backers. Their cooperation has already changed the military balance and raised the risk of wider insecurity across the Sahel. The alliance also marks a break with the pattern that had defined the conflict for years.

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Mali's war had previously pitted the state against multiple armed groups, often with shifting local rivalries and separate agendas. The new battlefield coordination suggests a level of tactical cooperation that is unusual in the region and potentially more difficult for the army to counter. It also complicates any future political settlement because the two groups do not share the same end goal.

The roots of the current phase lie in the collapse of the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement. That deal was intended to end years of fighting between Bamako and northern armed groups through greater decentralisation and political representation, but implementation repeatedly faltered. As the agreement weakened, the conflict space opened further, and successive military coups after 2020 reshaped Mali's political leadership and security strategy.

Those political changes also affected Mali's external alignments. The Economic Community of West African States suspended Mali and imposed sanctions after the coups, while Russia expanded its military role by deploying the Wagner Group in late 2021. The reporting says Russia later folded Wagner's operations into the Africa Corps, which now faces the consequences of the new offensive alongside the Malian army.

That makes the northern front not only a domestic security issue but also part of a wider contest over foreign military influence in the Sahel. For Bamako, the immediate challenge is to restore control over territory and prevent the alliance from consolidating gains. For the separatists, the offensive offers a chance to strengthen their position after years of stalled negotiations.

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For JNIM, the campaign appears designed to deepen pressure on the state and exploit the weakness created by political fragmentation. The result is a conflict that is becoming harder to separate into clear political and military tracks. What remains unclear is how durable the partnership between the two groups will be and whether it can survive their conflicting long-term aims.

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