Country Report on Terrorism 2021 - Chapter 4 - Terrorist Safe Havens - The Trans-Sahara

In 2021, AQ affiliate Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and other groups, including ISIS-Greater Sahara, continued to stage asymmetric attacks in the Trans-Sahara region, expanding and consolidating areas under their control and preventing effective government provision of services.  These terrorist groups have freedom of movement throughout Mali and Burkina Faso, except for major cities.  JNIM continued to conduct large-scale attacks and massacres, expanding its operational footprint and capabilities, with JNIM alone responsible for more than 500 incidents in 2021.  JNIM’s success attracts support from other regional terrorist groups, including Nigeria-based and AQ-aligned Ansaru.  JNIM continued to insert itself into longstanding ethnic conflicts such as the Fulani-herder-versus-Dogon-farmer conflict over water and grazing land.

Vast swaths of Mali’s territory — particularly in the country’s northern region and along its eastern borders with Niger and Burkina Faso — remained effectively ungoverned in 2021.  In these spaces, terrorist networks, including groups linked to JNIM and ISIS-Greater Sahara, have taken root and exploited the lack of state presence to plan and conduct operations and to recruit operatives.  The area where terrorist groups can operate freely continues to grow and, over the last year, extends south along the Burkinabe border to Côte d’Ivoire.

No government in the region was known to support or facilitate the proliferation or trafficking of WMD in or through its territory, although the region remained prone to arms and munitions smuggling.

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