Al Qaeda-linked militants launched coordinated attacks across Mali on Saturday, claiming to have seized two major cities while simultaneously striking the heart of the capital, Bamako, in what observers described as a major, unprecedented offensive.
The group, JNIM, attacked several cities at the same time and hit the country’s military headquarters just outside Bamako, where the home of the defense minister was destroyed, according to experts who monitor the region. In a statement, JNIM claimed to have captured the northern city of Kidal and the central city of Mopti, as well as military bases in nearby Sevaré and in Gao. It named the Azawad Liberation Front, an armed separatist movement of the Tuareg ethnic minority, as its partner in the attacks.
The offensive follows an evolution of the group from a rural insurgency into a formidable force that uses blockades to starve major cities and launches conventional-style battles against the Malian army.
“This morning’s attacks represent a major escalation in the conflict, a new stage reached by armed groups,” said Jean-Hervé Jezequel, the Sahel Project director at the International Crisis Group.
Many residents of Bamako awoke on Saturday to a huge boom.
“At about 5 a.m., we heard a giant explosion that made our houses shake,” said a businessman in Bamako who asked to be identified only by his first name, Abdoulaye, for security reasons. “We were really scared.”
The government put out an early, short statement on Saturday confirming multiple attacks by “as yet unidentified armed terrorist groups,” saying that its forces were still battling them and that further information would be given later.
But as further official information did not materialize, many turned to social media.
There, videos that appeared to show the destroyed house of Gen. Sadio Camara, the defense minister, were popping up. It is unclear what happened to Gen. Camara, who experts said had been Mali’s main point of contact with Russia, whose Africa Corps paramilitary group works with the ruling government junta.
The territory that is now Mali was once the scholarly and commercial engine of a succession of West African empires, famed for the thousands of medieval manuscripts in Timbuktu, the towering mud-brick architecture of the Niger River valley, and a vibrant musical tradition that attracted crowds of global tourists. But in the past 14 years, it has been buffeted by rebellions, jihadist threats, the arrival and later unceremonious exit of French forces, and several military coups.
JNIM used car bombs and armed drones in coordinated attacks across the country, according to Héni Nsaibia of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Battles were still going on and the situation in several cities remained unclear as Saturday drew to a close. Bamako and Kati, the garrison town attached to the capital where the military junta resides, were major targets. These attacks were repelled, Mr. Nsaibia said.
“It seems the objective is to bring down the regime, but that is unlikely to succeed,” he said. “But even if that doesn’t succeed, they have shown that they have capability to attack pretty much everywhere, and put a lot of pressure.”
JNIM was established in 2017 and stands for Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, Arabic for Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims. At first, it concentrated on taking control of rural areas. Lately, that has changed.
Since 2022, JNIM-led attacks on urban centers have more than tripled across the central Sahel, according to the International Crisis Group.
JNIM has lately been inspired by Syria, where a rebel group once allied with Al Qaeda toppled the longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, said Corinne Dufka, an independent analyst on the Sahel who maintains regular contact with people close to JNIM.
After nearly a decade in the bush, JNIM’s leaders want the group to be a political entity as well as a military one, she said, and to push Mali’s government toward a negotiated settlement — something the government has resisted. Taking a major urban center would put pressure on the government and show its weaknesses (as well as those of its military partners, Russia and Turkey), she said. It would also give JNIM, which has recently been distancing itself from Al Qaeda, the chance to show it could govern a city, she added.
“This flash offensive is as important militarily as it is symbolically,” she said.
Many Malians were awed by the scale and coordination of the attacks.
“I’m completely confused,” said a Bamako resident who works in transportation and requested anonymity for his own safety, adding that he thought there must be more going on than the government admitted. “It would be almost impossible for JNIM to do this all alone — they must have the support of forces on the inside.”
As the day wore on, many craved more information.
“I wish the president or someone high up would come out and speak to Mali,” said Abdoulaye, the businessman. “That could calm Malians down and reassure us.”
Saikou Jammeh contributed reporting from Dakar.
Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, covering 25 countries including Nigeria, Congo, the countries in the Sahel region as well as Central Africa.
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