We Warned This Might Happen: Al-Qaeda’s Long-Forecasted Assault on Mali

<![CDATA[On Saturday, April 25, 2026, the world awoke to a nightmare that seasoned observers of the Sahel had been forecasting for years. Fighters from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the al-Qaeda-linked umbrella group operating across West Africa, launched a coordinated nationwide assault on Mali. Striking before dawn, they hit Bamako’s Modibo Keïta International Airport, the main military base at Kati, the home of Defense Minister Sadio Camara, and cities including Mopti, Gao, and Kidal. JNIM’s longtime tactical partners, the Tuareg separatists of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), simultaneously moved on northern strongholds, reportedly seizing much of Kidal and lowering the Malian flag.]]>