Description: The civilian population in Mali started to experience the widespread consequences of the fuel blockade imposed by the Al Qaeda affiliated militants, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The blockade is part of the larger strategy by the militant group to suffocate the country’s ailing economy by blocking fuel imports from neighboring Senegal and the Ivory Coast. Fuel stations were extremely crowded with people attempting to fuel their vehicles as petrol stations have had difficulties in ensuring fuel supplies. According to a recent report by Malian Petroleum Importers Association, JNIM has attacked or destroyed more than 100 tanker trucks coming from neighboring countries in the past month. Mali, which is heavily reliant on energy imports is led by a military junta which has apparent difficulties in stabilizing import routes for energy supplies.
Impact: Terrorist organizations in the Sahel have significantly upscaled and sophisticated the level of their attacks as they diversified the methods of pressuring the governing military juntas. JNIM has been consistent in their attacks targeting the country’s economy in the last couple of months and pressuring the government by delegitimizing its ability to tackle security threats which endanger the population’s livelihood. Mali’s military and security forces led by the junta have demonstrated severe lack in capacities, methods and resources in combating terrorist organizations and their offshoots. The Sahel region is in desperate need of a wider counterterrorism initiative which would establish a security platform for joint subversion of terrorist threats. Militant groups such as JNIM of other offshoots from terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State currently operate unopposed by the security forces which in return causes protracted security crises further depleting the national economies of countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.