Al-Qaeda-affiliated JNIM terrorists torched fuel tankers and other civilian vehicles, including buses and trucks, en route to Mali’s capital, Bamako, BBC reported on May 21, and went on to “confirm” that the “blockade of this city” has intensified.

The Western media has been peddling the narrative of a blockaded capital and a besieged government since late last year, after similar attacks. It doubled down on this narrative after the JNIM, in coalition with a Tuareg separatist group in the north called the MNLA, launched country-wide, coordinated attacks on six cities to overthrow the sovereigntist government that had expelled French troops from the country.

Admitting that “the coalition failed to achieve their main goal”, the French newspaper of record, Le Monde, however, headlined its article on May 13, “Mali’s junta effectively under siege since the Bamako attack.”

The British newspaper, The Guardian, claimed on May 15 that JNIM fighters are “enforcing a strict blockade on Bamako”. Only a day later, 700 fuel tankers arrived in Bamako, escorted by the Malian armed forces and Russia’s Africa Corps, assisting in its counter-terror operations.

​Landlocked, Mali depends on fuel imports arriving through the ports of Senegal, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast. The JNIM does not control any stretches of the roads connecting Bamako to these ports, explained Fassery Traoré, president of the Coalition Together to Save the Sahel (CPSS), comprised of AJF-Mali, the NGO AJAAH-Mali, the NGO NIETA, and the Women’s Network of NIETA. Unable to hold positions on these roads, they have not so far been able to actually impose the widely reported “blockade”.

However, the repeated hit-and-run attacks by its fighters on civilian trucks and tankers have necessitated armed escorts to convoys carrying fuel and other essentials to Bamako, raising the cost of transportation and reducing supplies.

“Pump prices have shot up. The OCHA notes a 25 to 71% rise in the price of rice, flour, oil, and millet in the North. In Bamako, it is less severe, but stocks of certain products are starting to dwindle,” Traoré told Peoples Dispatch.

Despite the pain this is causing the Malian masses, support for the military government led by Col. Assimi Goïta remains high, as evidenced by the multiple demonstrations in the country on May 9 in solidarity with the armed forces, he observed.

Read more: Thousands of Malians demonstrate in support of the government’s fight against terror groups

A large section of Mali’s population “no longer sees” these attacks as mere “terrorism, but as a proxy war against Mali’s sovereignty,” he explained.

Proxy war

Amid mass protests against France’s continued domination of its former colony, the regime of President Ibrahim Keïta, propped up by France, was ousted in a widely supported coup in 2020.

Ever since a subsequent popular military government expelled French troops from the country in 2022, France has been flying missions in its airspace to collect intelligence and airdrop arms to terror groups, Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop wrote to the UN Security Council that year. The “emergency meeting” he sought to present evidence was not granted.

Read more: Withdrawal of French troops from Mali is a historic, anti-imperialist victory

Subsequently, similar allegations were also made by neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, after the France-backed regimes there too were ousted in coups amid mass protests, replacing them with popularly-supported military governments that expelled French troops.

Read more: France is a state sponsor of terror, AES countries declare

Although France itself denies these allegations, Andriy Yusov, the military intelligence spokesperson of its ally, Ukraine, boasted in a 2024 interview that it provided “necessary information, and not just information” to Tuareg armed groups to carry out attacks in Mali.​

Le Monde had further reported that Ukrainian authorities are also training armed Tuareg separatists to use drones. It is these separatists who formed the coalition with Al-Qaeda to launch the April 25 attacks.

Given a public understanding of the foreign hands at play, the sovereignty-asserting government has retained popularity.

**“Rising prices are creating fatigue”**​

However, Traoré warns that the “rising prices are creating fatigue. Support is holding, but it is conditional on military results and supply management.”

A counter-offensive to achieve these “military results” is underway. Within days after the attack, the Malian government retook Menaka in the southeast near the Nigerien border from the Islamic State in the Sahel Province. ​

Its fighters had occupied the town while its armed forces were tied up, engaging Al-Qaeda and the Tuareg separatists on April 25. However, in no position to hold, they fled when the Malian army, backed by the Africa Corps, marched in on April 29.​

Then, on May 6, the government also recaptured the Gao region’s Labezanga city on the border with Niger, reopening crucial corridors with Niger and Burkina Faso, whose troops are also assisting the Malian army.

A potential game-changer

Facing common threats from France after ousting its puppet governments and expelling its troops, the three Sahelian former colonies united to form a military and political bloc, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

Read more: Niger hosts historic conference on the fight against neocolonialism in the Sahel ​

The 5,000-soldier-strong joint force they established in December 2025 was increased to 15,000 in April 2026. This force has been active, not only in the tri-border region in the southeast, but also in Mali’s northeastern region of Kidal, added Traoré.

Its capital by the same name, handed over to the separatists by the French troops in 2013, was recaptured by this military government in 2023, less than a year and a half after expelling French troops. Following the April 25 attacks, the separatists are once again in control of the city.

However, the AES joint force has not marched into a bloody battle, given that the city is not of great strategic importance, militarily or logistically. Instead, they are “carrying out airstrikes to strangle” the supply routes of terrorists, said Traoré. Their “overland supply lines are cut off.”

Should this counter-offensive, which is the “first major joint operation” of the AES joint force, fail, “it will weaken the entire confederal project.” But, “if the force holds,” he argues, it will prove to be a game-changer, not only for AES, but for the entire region.

Read more: “Sovereignty will be consolidated”, reiterates Malian president after “foreign-sponsored” terror attacks in six cities

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