INTERNATIONAL – AFRICA
6 SEPTEMBER 2025
- Jihadists allied to al-Qaeda have launched a blitz of raids on Malian industrial sites run by foreign firms, especially Chinese, in the arid Sahel region as a tactic to undermine the ruling junta.
- Mali is run by the Army since back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.
- While present across wider west Africa, the powerful Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, is known by its Arabic acronym JNIM.
- A recent UN report found the group’s “core ambition remains the creation of an emirate that could challenge the legitimacy of military regimes, force them to cede authority and implement sharia” law, or the Islamic legal code.
- From the end of July 2025, the JNIM has made good on its threats, attacking seven foreign-run industrial sites in one of Africa’s top producers of gold and lithium.
- Six of those were run by Chinese firms, most of them in the gold-rich Kayes region to the west, with the jihadists abducting at least 11 Chinese citizens in the raids.
- Kayes accounts for roughly 80% of Mali’s gold production and serves as a trade corridor to Senegal
- The military government has seized control of Mali’s largest goldmine, the Loulo-Gounkoto site in the Kayes region, from Canadian giant Barrick Mining, demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes.
- Besides Chinese, the JNIM also kidnapped three Indians at a cement works in the west in early July.
- Chinese sugar refineries near the town of Segou, British-run lithium mine in Bougouni, h ave been among the targets.
- Chinese private investment in Mali came to approximately $1.6 billion between the years 2009 and 2024, while the Chinese government has poured in $1.8 billion across 137 projects since 2000.
- After turning its back on former colonial ruler France and the West more broadly, the junta has sought closer ties with China, as well as Russia and Turkiye.
- Russian mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary group and its successor, Africa Corps, Chinese armoured cars and Turkish drones have helped the Malian Army in its more than a decade-long fight against the jihadist insurgency.
