You Can See Bamako Losing From Space

The numbers of the blockade, compiled from open-source tracking: more than 300 fuel tankers destroyed since September 2025 on the routes from Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire that carry roughly 95 percent of Mali's fuel; over 1,000 tankers escorted into the capital by armed convoy since late October; a general appointed in January to run what is now a permanent military logistics operation; at least 15 dead in a single February convoy ambush near the Senegalese border. And the measurement that captures it all: Bamako's nighttime brightness, seen from orbit, has measurably diminished — a capital rationing light. This is the strategic backdrop to this month's JNIM offensive across the north: the group does not need to take Bamako while it can dim it, tax it, and let the junta's Russian and Turkish partners demonstrate nightly that escorted convoys are not sovereignty.

Assessment: A blockade measurable from space is also a narrative weapon — expect JNIM's propaganda to discover satellite imagery about the same time the junta bans discussing it. The indicators remain physical: tanker arrivals per week, the black-market fuel premium, and school and power-station operating hours in the capital. If Algeria's border posture toward JNIM logistics shifts after the Algiers-Bamako détente, that — not another repelled raid — would be the first real counter-siege news.