The jihadist group JNIM is entering a new phase in its campaign to strangle Mali’s economy. Since September 3, it has imposed a blockade on the Kayes region, a strategic chokepoint through which nearly 30% of the country’s overland imports pass and which produces 80% of its gold. According to an analysis by the Timbuktu Institute, the goal goes beyond simple military harassment: it aims to « destabilize, even asphyxiate the Malian economy, » isolate the capital Bamako, and pile pressure on the transitional regime, while discouraging foreign investors, particularly Chinese ones.
On the ground, the jihadists have shifted their methods. Rather than maintaining fixed checkpoints now too exposed to retaliation from the Malian army, they favor motorbike ambushes against convoys, a more mobile and harder-to-anticipate tactic. This approach played out on September 13 and 14 through a series of coordinated attacks: fuel tankers set ablaze in Kolokani to the west, a strike on a road near Kayes that carries more than 70% of the country’s imports, and an assault on a military position in Konna, in the center.
The offensive reached its peak on Sunday, September 14, when a convoy of more than 80 fuel tankers arriving from Senegal, despite being escorted by the Malian army, came under attack, with roughly twenty vehicles set on fire following a similar attack the day before. Soldiers were killed or captured amid the chaos, with security sources describing « total confusion » on the Malian side. JNIM also claims to have seized a barracks in Konna and a military post in Djenné, in the Mopti region, confirming the continued expansion of its influence toward the center of the country.
Beyond blocking trade routes, the jihadist movement is establishing what analysts describe as « parallel economic control, » pushing economic actors toward informal networks that it taxes itself. This strategy erodes the Malian state’s legitimacy while generating revenue for the organization, all while stretching security forces thinner across an ever-widening front, a spillover effect that is beginning to raise concern beyond the country’s borders.