Mali Attacks Highlights Continuing Jihadist Threat

A lone Islamist attacker killed four people-two Malians, one French and one Belgian citizen-in a gun and grenade attack on a bar in Mali's capital Bamako on the evening of March 7, before being killed himself by the security services. The attack was later claimed by the al-Murabitun jihadist movement via audio message. The recording said that the attack had been carried out to "avenge our Prophet" who had been "insulted and mocked" (Maliweb.net, March 9). The message also said the attack had been carried out in revenge for killing Ahmed al-Tilemsi, a founding member of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), who was killed in Mali in December 2014 during a battle with French special forces. Al-Tilemsi had also been an important member of al-Murabitun, which was itself formed by a 2013 merger between MUJWA and a smaller Salafi-Jihadist group run by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Algerian militant (RFI, December 11, 2014). The attack was the first fatal terrorist event in Bamako in several years, underlining the continuing jihadist presence in the country. However, the audio message also claimed a failed January assassination attempt against General Mohamed Ould Meydou, a senior ethnic Arab officer in the Malian Army, whose perpetrators were previously unknown. A suspected accomplice of the attacker was killed in a Malian special forces raid in the following week (Maliweb.net, March 16).

The attack potentially indicates that ethnic Tuareg and Arab Islamist insurgents, who are mainly confined to sparsely-inhabited northern Mali, may be seeking to bring the conflict to the capital. In addition, the nature of the attack, conducted against civilian targets associated with foreign interests, is strongly reminiscent of tactics by other Islamist militant groups worldwide, and potentially suggests that the group is shifting away from insurgency-style, mainly-rural operations toward conducting more terrorist attacks in urban areas. This shooting attack also comes soon after preliminary peace talks between the Malian government and representatives of various Arab and Tuareg armed rebel groups in Algeria. These talks ended positively in early March, with the Malian government signing the deal on March 1, and representatives of the main separatist rebel groups, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (Mouvement National pour la Libération de l'Azawad-MNLA) and the Arab Movement for Azawad (Mouvement arabe de l'Azawad-MAA), promising to return to northern Mali to consult their grassroots supporters before signing it themselves (Algerie Presse Service, March 1). The Bamako attack, coming just days after this progress, may have been intended by al-Murabitun to signal their opposition to the proposed agreement and their determination to continue fighting. Since then, the Coordination of Azawad Movements (Coordination des Mouvements de l'Azawad-CMA), an umbrella group of different rebel organizations, rejected the current version of the proposed accord on March 16, although they said that it offered a basis for further negotiations (Maliweb.net, March 17).

At the same time, however, hit-and-run guerrilla attacks have continued in the north. Most notably, a UN base in the northern city of Kidal was struck by around 30 rockets, killing two local civilians and one Chadian soldier (Maliweb.net, March 8). No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile, ethnic tensions remain a key driver of the continuing violence in the region, underscoring how the conflict in northern Mali has polarized communities that had previously lived in relative harmony. For instance, in one recent bout of violence, two innocent ethnic-Arab teenagers were attacked, disemboweled and then burnt alive by locals in the aftermath of a suspected militant grenade attack on a nearby police station in the northern city of Gao (Maliweb.net, March 11; France24, March 10). The developments underscore that even if the main Malian northern rebel groups do reach an agreement with the government, northern Mali is likely to remain unstable for some time to come.

Link to original story on Jamestown website