A musician, an al-Qaida fan, a war criminal – and now he’s our ally
Until relatively recently, few people outside Mali had heard of the Azawad Liberation Front, known by its French initials as the FLA. This changed on April 25, when the FLA and an Islamist militia known as the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, launched simultaneous surprise attacks on Mali’s government forces at opposite ends of the country.
The military rulers of the country and their Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group that keep them in power have clung on for now, but only just.
The JNIM targeted government centres in the south, notably killing Mali’s defence minister, Sadio Camara, with a car bomb. Its fighters then established checkpoints on highways leading into the capital, Bamako, in effect putting it under siege.
The FLA, meanwhile, captured the northern town of Kidal, forcing the Russian troops stationed there into retreat.
With the media covering the wider conflict, the FLA is getting more attention than ever before. The group was formed in 2024 by the merger of multiple ethnic militias, mostly from Mali’s Tuareg people, but also including local Arab insurgent groups.
In theory, the FLA is secular and only interested in liberating the region it calls “Azawad”. But its alliance with the JNIM, a jihadist al-Qaida affiliate designated a terrorist group by multiple governments, calls that into serious question.
JNIM’s leader, Iyad ag Ghali, was once a hard-drinking musician. But after spending time in Saudi Arabia, he began to develop extreme views, and he eventually pledged allegiance to the late leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Ghali is wanted by the UN for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the Tuareg rebellion.
I made contact with the FLA’s chief spokesperson, Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane. My first question: what is your relationship with these Islamist extremists fighting in the south?
“There isn’t an alliance,” he said. “We have the same problems as the JNIM, that’s it. Their families have also been victims of the same barbarities, these terrorist attacks committed by the Malian army and the Wagner mercenaries. So we have been able to find a mechanism – security arrangements if you will – that allow us to confront our common enemy instead of fighting with each other.”
The idea that the FLA and JNIM share a common opponent is undeniable. Since assuming power in 2021, Mali’s Gen Assimi Goïta has gone out of his way to make as many enemies as possible. Until a few years ago, a collection of Tuareg and Arab militias had been allowed to control the town of Kidal as part of a 2015 peace agreement with the Malian armed forces.
Goïta decided to rip up this deal, and in 2024 sent Malian and Wagner forces into Kidal to clear them out. Forced into the desert, the Tuareg and Arab militias united to form the FLA. They also ended their long-running feud with Mali’s Islamist insurgents and, apparently, began negotiations that culminated in the coordinated attacks.
These have returned Kidal to FLA control, but Kidal is just one small part of the vast expanse of northern Mali. Because of the sparse population and fragmented media coverage, it’s difficult to confirm other FLA victories. Ramadane claims that the group has made significant progress.
“We are present on all the borders of our territory,” he said, “and we control a very large part of it. It’s true that we don’t yet control the other main cities of Gao and Timbuktu, but that’s still our objective.”
With the Malian army and the Russian mercenaries focused on the south, the FLA may yet achieve its goal of controlling all of northern Mali. Whether or not it can maintain that control long enough to establish de facto independence is another issue.
A predecessor organisation called the Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad successfully pushed government forces out of northern Mali in 2012, only to be forced out themselves a few months later by the main Islamist militia of the day, the Ansar Dine.
If the Malian government in Bamako is overthrown, can the FLA trust the JNIM not to repeat the events of 14 years ago? “Peace is impossible as long as the junta is in power in Bamako,” Ramadane explained. “We must remove them, and to do that we must support all Malian actors, political and otherwise, who want to rid themselves of this dictatorship.”
When asked if there was an understanding between the FLA and the Islamist JNIM about Azawad’s future status, he said: “There is no agreement. The determination of the Azawad population remains the same, as do our demands.”
What are those demands?
“We have endured all kinds of massacres and crimes in the complete silence of the international community, but we do not ask for anything extraordinary. We want to live freely and with dignity, and to have a special status for our territory. We have no other agenda. Our problem is with dictators in Bamako. That’s it.”
Fredo Rockwell is a YouTuber, freelance copywriter, communications adviser and journalist
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