HIBAPRESS – Shafiq Annouri
The terrorist attacks that Mali witnessed last April sounded the alarm, after revealing for the first time in years, the hidden alliance between terrorist organizations and their separatist counterparts, following the alignment of the Azawad movements alongside the jihadist groups, in order to target the government of Bamako.
This unusual alliance raised many questions among those interested, especially considering the great ideological disparity between the jihadist organizations that derive their ideas from religious texts, and their separatist counterparts who adopt secular, leftist, and nationalist ideas. In this context, the Malian activist Hamdi Jowara said in a statement to the HIBAPRESS newspaper that the alliance of terrorist and separatist groups "is not the product of today," explaining that they were allied in "2012, where they did the same thing they did in April 2026." He added that this alliance of these groups happened despite their differences in ideological and political ideology, so that "the Azawad Front adopts a secular nationalist orientation, even if it has recently disavowed it, as stated by its leader Bilal Ag Sharif in his meeting with a channel recently." He pointed out that this disavowal of the secular orientation may be the main reason for the understanding of the Azawad Front with the terrorist organizations, considering that the front "is the weakest party in this alliance, and therefore evades secular affiliation so that it harmonizes with the ISIS, al-Qaeda, and terrorist rhythm." Jowara highlighted that the Support for Islam and Muslims group "had previously expelled Azawad from Timbuktu and Gao in 2013, and wanted to expel them from Kidal, but due to French protection, they were stopped on the outskirts of Kidal and retreated, before being expelled from Gao and Timbuktu." Jowara considered that the alliance between separatist groups and their terrorist counterparts in Mali "is a transitional phase, because al-Nusra does not believe in nationalist thought in the first place, even if its leader Iyad Ag Ghali has tribal tendencies that he does not show so as not to lose half of those who stand with him in the alliance." The Malian activist concluded that the recent attack in Mali happened "because the enemy is common among these organizations, which is Mali and its army, and therefore they stopped their differences to work on overthrowing Bamako or cutting off the line of communication between Bamako and Kidal, which is what actually happened after targeting Defense Minister Sadio Camara in his home."
