The Buffer Collapses: Tuareg Separatists and al-Qaeda Now Fight Mali as One Front
Mali's war worked because the separatists and the jihadists fought each other. A joint July 18 ambush near Gao says that is over — and the junta's northern spine is the first thing at risk.
On July 18 the secular-separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and al-Qaeda's JNIM ambushed a Malian army convoy leaving Anéfis for Gao; both claimed it as a joint operation, citing "great human losses" and captured armour, with the convoy said to include Russian Africa Corps personnel. AP put the toll at "scores" of soldiers killed or captured; Bamako issued no figure. It followed coordinated July 4 attacks at Gao, Aguelhok, Anéfis, Kenieroba and Sévaré. ACLED's Héni Nsaibia reads the convergence as tactical — a shared enemy in the army and its Russian partners — despite opposed goals: the FLA wants northern autonomy, JNIM sharia rule.
Assessment: Mali's counterinsurgency has long rested on its enemies cancelling each other out. Their convergence against Bamako and the Africa Corps removes that buffer and threatens the Anéfis–Gao–Kidal supply spine. Every joint ambush erodes the junta's core bargain — Russian muscle for legitimacy — by showing that neither Africa Corps nor Turkish drones can hold the north once the two insurgencies stop fighting one another.