The Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terror group stormed a Malian military base in Boulkessi at dawn June 1 and opened fire. Hours later, online videos showed celebrating JNIM fighters stepping over the bodies of dead soldiers.
The terrorists claimed they had killed more than 100 troops and captured 20. According to The Arab Weekly, the massacre was one of more than a dozen deadly attacks by JNIM on military outposts and towns across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in May and June. The group claimed it had killed more than 400 soldiers in those assaults.
“The offensive has produced one of the deadliest-ever 30-day periods in the Sahel and made May the deadliest month in the Sahel since August 2024,” analyst Liam Karr wrote for the Institute for the Study of War.
In May, JNIM attacks across the three junta-led countries killed more than 850 people, including security forces, up from an average of 600 deaths in previous months, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project.
Experts told The Arab Weekly that JNIM is shifting from primarily attacking rural areas and aims to control more territory around urban centers while asserting political dominance throughout the Sahel.
“The recent attacks point [to] a concrete effort to encircle Sahelian capitals, aiming for a parallel state stretching from western Mali to southern Niger and northern Benin,” Mucahid Durmaz, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence group Verisk Maplecroft, told the newspaper.
The group was particularly busy July 1, when it attacked two Malian Army positions in the central part of the country and five western Army positions, and on border posts with Mauritania and Senegal. It also attacked Kayes, capital of the Kayes region, which accounts for about 80% of Mali’s gold production. The militants also targeted police stations, government buildings and industrial sites. That day, Katiba Macina, a JNIM faction, struck industrial and mining sites in Bafoulabé along a major logistical and trade corridor.
Although the Malian Armed Forces killed 80 militants in the July 1 battles, “the scale, synchronization and breadth” of JNIM’s operation highlighted its “increasingly sophisticated coordination capabilities,” wrote analysts with The Soufan Center.
On August 1, JNIM ambushed a convoy of Russian Africa Corps mercenaries in Mali’s Mopti region with machine guns and grenade launchers, killing at least three mercenaries and wounding several more.
In Burkina Faso, JNIM has increased pressure on administrative and population centers and commune capitals throughout the year. Its attacks on Burkinabe commune centers are on pace to result in nearly as many fatalities in 2025 as in 2023 and 2024 combined, ACLED reported. JNIM attacks on Burkinabe provincial capitals in 2025 are on pace to more than double the number of fatalities from 2023 and 2024 combined.
“The shifting focus to commune and provincial centers indicates an effort to increase pressure on these politically sensitive and ‘harder’ targets,” Karr wrote.
Many of the attacks in Burkina Faso were near the Malian border. They exposed the limits of the Sahelian juntas’ air support and underscored JNIM’s tactical adaptations as it sometimes remained in seized towns for hours without facing air or drone strikes. One JNIM video showed its fighters using stolen 14.5-mm anti-aircraft guns to force Burkinabe air support to retreat from Djibo.
“An increase in attacks on more politically sensitive population centers highlights that the state cannot protect the population, which leads local leaders to negotiate with JNIM to protect their communities,” Karr wrote. “JNIM has besieged population centers across the Sahel to attain these local agreements over the last several years.”
JNIM is led by Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg and former Malian diplomat. Analysts believe the group might have several thousand fighters, mostly young men and boys who lack economic opportunities. It seeks to impose its harsh interpretation of Islamic law in the Sahel. Although JNIM is affiliated with al-Qaida, its approach in the region is similar to the Islamic State group’s efforts in Syria.
In some areas, JNIM has imposed strict dress codes, banned music and smoking, ordered men to grow beards, and prevented women from being alone in public areas. According to Yvan Guichaoua, a senior researcher at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies, this interpretation of Islam clashes with how the religion is normally practiced in communities under JNIM control.
“These practices are clearly breaking from established practices and certainly [are] not very popular,” Guichaoua told the BBC. “But whether it’s attractive or not, also depends on what the state is able to deliver, and there has been a lot of disappointment in what the state has been doing for the past years.”
