West Africa today stands at a crossroads of the most serious threats in its contemporary history. Mali, once a symbol of democratic stability, has become one of the most critical centers of international terrorism. Since the 2012 crisis and the partial collapse of the state apparatus, Al‑Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its local affiliates—notably the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM)—have consolidated their grip on vast portions of the territory. The advance toward Bamako, set against a backdrop of weakening central authority and regional rivalries, marks a new stage: the territorialization of jihadism.
In Mali, a new political phenomenon is emerging—the metamorphosis of Al‑Qaeda into a political actor. Unlike traditional insurgent models, Al‑Qaeda now seeks to administer, govern, and legitimize its control. This evolution demands a paradigm shift: from mobile and diffuse terrorism, the Sahel is shifting toward institutionalized terrorism capable of exercising de facto sovereignty. The issue is no longer only military, but also political, ideological, and ontological—concerning the relationship between violence and power, between religion and legitimacy, between state collapse and alternative order. I am very worried about this country that I know well and that has already endured so many trials. To understand this shift, one must return to a conceptual analysis based on two essential elements: the theory of securitization and the notion of state failure. In the case of the Malian state, these two logics overlap, since the state, weakened by ethnic fragmentation, systemic corruption, and external dependence, has not only lost its monopoly on legitimate violence but also on the production of political meaning. Al‑Qaeda has thus seized the political sphere and, through it, redefined the very field of sovereignty, reinventing the notion of territorial order in a transnational space.
Mali’s fragility is not a recent accident but the outcome of a cumulative process of deinstitutionalization. Since the 1990s, unfinished decentralization, the marginalization of northern regions, and clientelist resource management have fed structural grievances. The 2012 collapse, triggered by the Tuareg rebellion and worsened by the military coup, was a founding moment: the Malian state disintegrated simultaneously on territorial, administrative, and symbolic levels. The vacuum left by the army and civilian authorities allowed Al‑Qaeda and its allies to implant a politico‑religious project based on sharia, Islamic taxation (zakat), and community justice. The international missions (Serval, then Barkhane) did slow territorial expansion but failed to restore the state’s legitimacy. Moreover, outsourcing security to foreign powers reinforced the perception of a dependent and impotent regime—a major attraction for Islamist groups that present themselves as guarantors of an indigenous moral order.
Al‑Qaeda’s transformation into a quasi‑state actor with a rudimentary governance apparatus can be explained in part by the existence of GSIM‑affiliated networks in the Mopti, Gao, and Timbuktu regions, which administer justice, collect taxes, and regulate land disputes and social norms. This gradual strategy seeks to institutionalize jihadism, turning it into a substitute authority rather than a mere violent movement. This process fits what Crenshaw (1981) described as “rational terrorism”—a means to seize power rather than destroy the existing system. Here, the targeted power is not symbolic but territorial. Al‑Qaeda no longer seeks to overthrow a state but to embody one—a major doctrinal transformation, inspired by the Taliban model but adapted to Sahelian realities. The territorialization of Sahelian jihadism thus reflects the emergence of an armed, dissident, and deterritorialized sovereignty.
The terrorist group’s success in Mali cannot be understood without examining the social and communal dynamics that shape the region. The north and center of the country constitute areas marked by long‑standing ethnic divisions—Fulani, Tuareg, Songhai, Arab—on which jihadist organizations have relied to legitimize their presence. The group’s strategy, unlike that of the Islamic State in the Sahel (EIS), is based on local integration. GSIM prioritizes incorporating local notables and community leaders into its governance networks in exchange for security, arbitration, and justice. This tactic of “social hybridization” allows it to avoid appearing as an occupying force while exploiting land and pastoral conflicts to its advantage. Conversely, the Islamic State adopts a more coercive strategy, seeking to impose a vertical, transnational authority. This ideological and tactical rivalry between Al‑Qaeda and EIS fragments the Sahelian jihadist landscape and complicates counterterrorism efforts, as local alliances shift and loyalties realign with fluctuating power balances. At the core of this dynamic lies an essential reality: the weakness of Malian state legitimacy creates fertile ground for jihadist competition. As Mary Kaldor (1999) observed, “new wars” thrive on the blurring of boundaries between civilian and combatant, criminal economy and ideological conflict. Mali exemplifies this total confusion between war, politics, and religion.
This advance toward Bamako raises an unprecedented question in contemporary international law: what happens when a terrorist organization takes control of a recognized sovereign state? Such a situation would compel the international community to reconsider the foundations of the Westphalian system. Indeed, an entity controlled by a designated terrorist group could neither be diplomatically recognized nor governed under classical international law norms. This situation poses major dilemmas: military interventions risk violating non‑interference principles, targeted strikes could be deemed breaches of humanitarian law, and economic sanctions would inevitably harm civilians first and foremost. The failed state thus becomes an “extra‑legal” space—a normative void where the categories of state and armed group overlap. As Hoffman (2017) noted, “when terror becomes institutionalized, it forces the law to acknowledge a power it condemns.”
The Malian case therefore invites broader reflection on the legitimacy of international interventions and the redefinition of legal tools confronted with terrorist sovereignty—a sovereignty without recognition but endowed de facto with territory, administration, and a population under control. Al‑Qaeda’s evolution in Mali illustrates the profound transformation of transnational terrorism in the twenty‑first century: from a clandestine network, it has become a political, territorial, and institutional actor. This mutation exposes the limits of classical counterterrorism doctrines based on deterrence, neutralization, and interstate cooperation. Mali is not merely a battlefield but a laboratory of state terrorism, where the fusion between irregular warfare, religious ideology, and local governance is being tested. Al‑Qaeda’s advance toward Bamako foreshadows an era in which terrorism acquires the attributes of sovereignty and fragile states become the breeding grounds of new armed political orders.
The advance of Al‑Qaeda in Mali represents a historic turning point in the trajectory of global terrorism. For the first time, an organization affiliated with the Al‑Qaeda network approaches the conquest of an African capital. This dynamic, embedded in the Sahel’s deteriorating security, reflects the collapse of state structures and the rise of a parallel order rooted in religious coercion and armed governance. The threat extends beyond Mali’s borders: it concerns the regional security of West Africa and international strategic interests. The establishment of a proto‑terrorist state in the heart of the continent would radically transform counterterrorism doctrines, Sahelian political balances, and the credibility of multilateral security frameworks.
