Al Qaeda-linked militants curb their brutality in seized Malian territory

DAKAR, June 13 - The meetings have become routine. Every few months, jihadists in Mali affiliated with al Qaeda summon the men of Poutchi to a mud-brick mosque to collect tax on their crops and cattle, and later distribute food, medicine and animals to the poor.

Five years ago, the same militants threatened to slit the throat of anyone in Poutchi - including the imam - who questioned their interpretation of Islam, recalls Amadou, a herder who lives in the village by the Niger River.

"Now, they don't talk like that," Amadou said, describing how the militants focused more on spreading their religious message without threats or violence. "The dynamic has really changed."

The jihadists are from Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), a group that pledged allegiance to al Qaeda when it was founded in 2017 and has spent the last decade imposing itself through fear and force across the Sahel region of West Africa, banning music, smoking and wedding celebrations as it goes.

Initially confined to desert and mountain hideouts, JNIM has gained in strength since the Malian army officers who seized power in 2020 kicked out some 15,000 French and U.N. soldiers and turned to Russian mercenaries to help keep the insurgents in check.

JNIM demonstrated its newfound power with audacious attacks across Mali in April, hitting the airport in the capital Bamako, killing the defence minister and seizing a string of army bases in the north in coordination with Tuareg-led separatists.

Mali's government describes both groups as terrorists responsible for violence and instability in the country. Moscow has pledged to continue fighting insurgents in Mali.

Yet the jihadist group now sits at the heart of an expanding belt of militants aligned with al Qaeda and Islamic State stretching 3,000 km (1,900 miles) across West Africa. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in November that the groups were linking up and presented a growing global threat.

Away from the high-profile military successes, however, a shift is taking place in areas where JNIM's authority is established, residents said.

Its rhetoric has softened. Militants are assuming administrative roles, resolving festering land disputes between herders and farmers, allowing aid groups to come and go and letting some government employees return to JNIM villages to spend holidays with relatives, according to seven people living under JNIM rule in central Mali who spoke to Reuters.

"The stronger they have become, the less brutal they have to be," said Corinne Dufka, a Sahel expert who has studied the growth of jihadists in Mali for over a decade.

Dufka said JNIM was succeeding to govern in its strongholds, but that residents' acquiescence was also a survival strategy.

"There is a combination of coercion, fear and persuasion," she said. "For many villagers, including those who have lived, married, and grown up under the group, they have just accepted that this is the new reality."

For fear of reprisals, the residents spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, or that only their first names be used.

Neither Mali's government nor the military's spokesperson responded to requests for comment for this story.

GOVERNMENT REJECTS DIALOGUE

The shift illustrates the evolution of the Islamist militant movement in Mali over the last 15 years.

Jihadist groups first seized swathes of Mali in 2012 after allying with Tuareg separatists. The mix of local and foreign militants imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, with public executions, floggings and the destruction of centuries-old mausoleums in the city of Timbuktu.

JNIM, formed from four of those groups, is increasingly seeking to show it can govern areas it seizes peacefully and thereby earn political legitimacy, according to Sahel experts and Tuareg-led separatists working with JNIM.

Bilal Ag Cherif, a veteran of the separatist movement that has maintained an on-off alliance with the Islamist insurgents and teamed up with JNIM in April, said he had noticed "positive changes" within the group, such as an openness to local interpretations of Islam and calls for a more "inclusive" Mali.

"They were open to discussing peace and stability in this region, to discuss important factors for us about their view of the future, to talk with everyone, to have peace," Cherif, leader of the separatists now called the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), told Reuters by phone from northern Mali.

He also said the FLA was encouraging JNIM fighters to cut ties with al Qaeda and focus on local issues.

"JNIM is dealing with this point positively, and we consider that very, very important," he said, adding that it was hard to see a solution to the conflict in northern Mali without JNIM's involvement.

JNIM has said its immediate goals are to force Russian troops out of Mali and to oust the army officers who seized power after coups in 2020 and 2021.

Following the April attacks, JNIM shifted its messaging, publishing a rare French-language statement calling on Malians to join them in ousting the government and building a new Mali founded on Islamic law. JNIM increasingly uses videos with a Malian fighter speaking Bambara, a language mostly used in southern Mali, far from the jihadi heartlands.

JNIM doesn't hold major cities and does not, for now, appear intent on seizing the capital, unlike the Islamist rebels once aligned with al Qaeda who took power in Syria in 2024.

Another video filmed by fighters and released on social media after the April attacks shows JNIM fighters processing captured Malian troops for release in Tessit. In the aftermath of previous victories, Islamist militants have executed captured soldiers.

Analysts say JNIM wants a role in talks about Mali's political future - something the military government rejects.

"The government does not intend to engage in dialogue with the lawless armed terrorist groups who bear responsibility for the tragic events that our people have been experiencing for years," Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop said in May, referring to JNIM and FLA.

Russia's Ministry of Defence did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to reach JNIM for comment.

'WE ARE NOT KILLED'

The group has been accused of massacres and remains capable of grisly violence.

In January, JNIM fighters killed 12 people in an attack on a fuel convoy – some of whom had their throats slit – and areas that resist face collective punishment. The insurgents attacked two villages in central Mali in May, killing about 50 people.

Nevertheless, the residents living under JNIM rule who spoke to Reuters described a form of governance that is often more predictable, less corrupt and less violent than Mali's military and allied forces.

"Since JNIM has controlled the area, we are safe. Even though their rule is difficult to respect, we have gotten used to it," said Aminata, from Birga-Peul village in the Mopti region, which JNIM took over in 2017. "We are not killed."

"They aren't violent like the foreigners who were there at the beginning," she said, referring to jihadists who had come from outside Mali. She said the movement was now much more embedded in the community. "They are tolerant and turn a blind eye to many things, like football and Android phones."

Where JNIM has not taken control, it sometimes enforces blockades. In the village of Diafarabe, also in the Mopti region, one resident said 13 children and 40 adults, including the elderly, had died from a lack of food and medicine after JNIM imposed a blockade a year ago.

"People can't even go 500 metres from the village ... so there's no more fish, no more meat, no more firewood," the person said.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the figures, nor reach JNIM for comment.

'IT'S A GOOD RELATIONSHIP'

The restrictions on freedoms imposed by Islamist militants in Mali, such as banning wedding celebrations, are at odds with West Africa's long history of Islam, where Islamic teaching was traditionally blended with local customs.

However, reformist movements have gained influence in recent decades, often by funding health and education in poor communities. Experts say this - coupled with the abuse of civilians by government troops, allied militias and Russian forces - has created opportunities for jihadists to exploit.

Hambarke, 57, who lives in a village in central Mali controlled by JNIM for seven years, recalled how they barred men from shaving and women from engaging in trade.

He said punishments were initially severe, including public whippings, but now the "radical rhetoric" had eased, with sermons focused on calls for unity and social cohesion and JNIM giving warnings before meting out punishments.

Mali's military has been accused by the U.N. and human rights groups of executing civilians suspected of collaboration with JNIM and other insurgents.

Malian soldiers and their Russian partners have killed three to four times more civilians than jihadists have over the last two years, according to data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a conflict monitoring group.

Mali's government has denied accusations its forces have targeted civilians, saying they had killed terrorists.

Six of the residents who spoke to Reuters reported abuse of civilians by the army or allied militias, with most saying this had driven young men in their villages to join JNIM.

"People have more faith in them, and it's a good relationship," said Amadou, the herder in Poutchi. REUTERS