The JNIM–ISSP war is an ongoing armed conflict between Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP), the Sahelian branches of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, respectively. Since ISGS's formation in October 2016 and the creation of the JNIM coalition in 2017, the two groups had been described as the Sahelien exception or Sahelien anomaly: despite the global war between al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates since the latter's splinter from the former in 2014, both ISGS and JNIM have ignored each other and in rare cases worked together against Malian, Nigerien, Burkinabe, French, Russian, and international governments and non-Islamist militias until 2020.
The first ideological split between the two groups began in early 2019, but intensified in the summer 2020 due to a variety of factors. JNIM press releases in 2019 attempted to mend the split between the two jihadists groups and called for unity, but by early 2020, JNIM began calling the ISGS "khawarij", a pejorative term for a historical group of Muslims who fought against the first Caliphate for inconclusive reasons. The ideological split was fueled by more confrontational propaganda after ISGS became an official province of the Islamic State under ISWAP in early 2019, and propaganda outlets fell under ISWAP control. ISGS referred to JNIM leaders Iyad Ag Ghaly and Amadou Koufa as allied with the Malian government to fight the ISGS, and accused them of starting a war. Issues between the treatment of the local population and minority groups also differed between the two groups, and both ISGS and JNIM championed themselves as protectors of Fulani.
Clashes first broke out in March 2019, with attempted negotiations to reconnect the two groups occurring in the following June and October. By January 2020, the war between the two groups was in full swing, and 125 clashes had been reported between the two groups and 415 fighters killed on both sides between 2019 and 2021. These clashes took place in eastern Mali's Ménaka and Gao regions and northern Burkina Faso. JNIM seized control of territories in these areas formerly controlled by ISGS with the exception of a few pockets, but ISGS expanded further into Niger and eastern Burkina Faso.
A significant operational difference between JNIM and ISGS is their civilian engagement strategy. According to Tammy Palacios, senior analyst and manager of the Priority Sustainable Counterterrorism portfolio at the New Lines Institute and Modern War Institute at West Point Fellow, JNIM's territorial expansion is largely due to this civilian engagement strategy and differentiates the two groups in the region, in terms of their operational strategies. JNIM and ISGS are both lethal and do kill civilians, including by horrendous means such as beheading, but JNIM has demonstrated a more intentional restraint to killing civilians and have made civilian engagement core to their approach in maintaining and taking control of territory in the tri-state hot zone. Both JNIM and ISGS consider it a killable offense for a civilian[s] to share information or to collaborate with the other group or with state security or volunteer fighting forces and civilians are killed en masse for this offense—removed from transport busses at road checkpoints and killed, even killed at their places of domicile in the middle of the night.
In the ISGS's Ménaka offensive in 2022 and 2023, the group's attacks on minorities and civilians alleged to be sympathetic to JNIM killed hundreds of civilians, and forced thousands to flee elsewhere. The clashes have also created a weakness in both groups, allowing them to be attacked by French, Russian, Malian, Nigerien, and Burkinabe forces.
Background
Original jihadist groups in Mali Several jihadist groups were formed in the early years of the Mali War, and many of them worked together against French and Malian forces and moderate Tuareg rebel groups like the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA). Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Abdelmalek Droukdel was the predecessor of many of these groups as AQIM had been active in the Sahel since the early 2000s. In 2012, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) and Al-Mulathameen split from AQIM. MOJWA was founded by Sultan Ould Bady and led by Ahmed al-Tilemsi, Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou and Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, and al-Mulathameen was led by Belmokhtar.
Al-Mourabitoun was formed in 2013 as the merger of MOJWA and al-Mulathameen and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. Tilemsi and Belmokhtar allowed Abu Bakr al-Nasr to command the group. When Nasr was killed by French forces, Tilemsi took over until he was killed in 2014. Tilemsi's death was the first spark of separatism for an Islamic State-sympathetic faction of al-Mourabitoun led by Sahrawi. Sahrawi pledged allegiance to IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in May 2015, bringing with him his faction of fighters and creating their own Islamic State after al-Mourabitoun leader Belmokhtar denounced Sahrawi's bay'ah and reconfirmed the group's loyalty to al-Qaeda.
Ethnic affiliations and rise of Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin Jihadist groups that were predominantly composed of ethnic groups, such as Ansar Dine led by Iyad Ag Ghaly and predominantly composed of Ifoghas Tuaregs and Katiba Macina led by Amadou Koufa and composed of Fulani people often from central Mali, continued their allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2015. Al-Mourabitoun eventually rejoined AQIM that same year, and MOJWA founder Sultan Ould Bady had formed his own group Katibat Salaheddin in 2013. Ansar Dine, Katiba Macina, Al-Mourabitoun, Katibat Salaheddin, and the budding Burkinabe jihadist group Ansarul Islam led by Ibrahim Malam Dicko and Djaffar Dicko formed the Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin coalition in March 2017. Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) became al-Qaeda's affiliate in the Sahel, and was led by the Tuareg Ghaly and Fulani Koufa.
Sahrawi's Islamic State-affiliated group was not recognized by IS caliph al-Baghdadi until October 2016. The group began its first attacks in Niger in early October, and was eventually recognized on October 30, 2016, by al-Baghdadi as an official IS-affiliated group part of Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP). Despite al-Qaeda and the Islamic State being at war globally after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi broke off from the former to create the latter in 2014, JNIM and ISGS commanders maintained contact with one another and even coordinated attacks with each other. These connections were based on mutual enemies in non-Islamist groups or governments and tribal alliances in local conflicts. Katiba Macina founder and leader Kouffa, an ethnic Fulani, met with Fulani ISGS commander Illiassou Djibo in early 2017 to discuss cooperation. Many JNIM commanders in Mali's Menaka Region also acted as liaisons and sometimes fighters with the ISGS.
The first coordinated attack between ISGS and JNIM was in November 2017, against a contingent of Nigeriens in MINUSMA. A JNIM commander then participated in the 2019 Tongo Tongo ambush which killed 30 Nigerien soldiers, and the Koutougou attack in August 2019 in Burkina Faso that killed dozens of Burkinabe soldiers. The deadliest attack by both ISGS and JNIM was in Inates, Niger in 2019, when over seventy Nigerien soldiers were killed by ISGS under the command of JNIM and High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA) fighters. Joint attacks where one group would ambush a target and the other would attack reinforcements also took place, along with JNIM-ISGS cooperation against Tuareg militias of GATIA and the MSA.
JNIM and ISGS commands were also intertwined often, and both groups claimed the same attack at times. Researchers Heni Nsaibia and Caleb Weiss stated that in the late 2010s, JNIM and ISGS were more concerned about establishing an Islamic State than territorial control.
Prelude Nsaibia and Weiss reported that while a variety of factors drove ISGS and JNIM to war with one another, the main reasons were ideological splits, Sahrawi's faction becoming inducted as a part of ISWAP in March 2019, and the subsequent outward growth and territorial influence by ISGS as central Islamic State leadership urged it to be more confrontational with JNIM. ISGS's induction into the global Islamic State also intensified differences in their treatment of local populations and ethnic and clan alliances, sparking many defections from Katiba Macina and other groups.
Role of central Islamic State JNIM propaganda written in early 2020 by Qutaybah Abu Numan al-Shinqiti, a Mauritanian Islamic scholar sympathetic to al-Qaeda, stated that JNIM needed to implement sharia law slowly to gain the trust of local populations in contrast to the Islamic State's immediate and harsh implementations, although the propaganda piece did not mention ISGS by name. A second pamphlet written by al-Shinqiti retold the story of the Hasan–Mu'awiya treaty as an example for ISGS and JNIM to reconcile their differences. JNIM audio messages in Tamacheq, Fulfulde, Arabic, and other local languages also called on Muslims to resist the khawarij, a pejorative term for the Islamic State, and dubbed ISGS's growing influence as a test to separate true believes from false ones in the Sahel.
Following ISGS's absorption into ISWAP in March 2019, central Islamic State leadership took a more direct role in managing the media output of ISGS. Most media output by ISGS prior to the merger was rudimentary and there was little collaboration with global Islamic State messaging. Under the new management, ISGS media was reported by central Islamic State al-Naba reports, and became extremely anti-JNIM as ISGS, ISWAP, and the central Islamic State began viewing JNIM as a competitor instead of an ally. In the first half of 2020, Islamic State leaders and reports accused JNIM leadership of working with "apostate" groups to maintain their status as the largest jihadist group in the Sahel, and working with Algeria to attack ISGS. Islamic State spokesman Abu Hamza Al-Qurashi also taunted JNIM for a high number of defections of their fighters to ISGS in Qurashi's accusation of JNIM trying to maintain their regional hegemony.
Defections As ISGS grew in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger by expanding their territorial influence over the areas and conducting large and deadly attacks, they were able to take advantage of internal disputes amid Katiba Macina in Mali. Many fighters disgruntled with Kouffa's leadership defected to ISGS in early 2020. Part of the reason for these dissensions was JNIM and Katiba Macina being open to treaties and non-aggression pacts with Dogon and Bambara in Mali, as Dogon and Bambara groups were in a war with Fulani, which make up the bulk of Katiba Macina. Abdelhakim al-Sahrawi, the second-in-command of ISGS, heavily criticized these pacts and subsequently drew many Fulani from Katiba Macina to ISGS. Kouffa's dealings with traditional Fulani leaders also alienated many of his fighters, as some perceived the creation and expansion of Katiba Macina as a form of dismantling the traditional Fulani caste system. Fulani elites who initially supported Kouffa's ideas of an Islamist Fulani empire also ceded their support when lower-caste Fulani began rising through Katiba Macina's ranks. More Islamist factions of JNIM and Katiba Macina also began defecting after Kouffa laxed sharia laws to welcome new groups, and hardline Islamist critics began praising ISGS's system of governance over JNIM's. ISGS as a whole began capitalizing off these intra-Fulani conflicts, and defections soon began en masse.