Rampant terrorist activity in Mali augurs ill for region

Nahla Abdelmonem

Mali suffers from the spread of terrorist groups, with their security disruptions.

These disruptions open the door for the possibility of greater geographical infiltrations by extremist organizations competing for African wealth.

The same conditions also cause the flight of foreign investments.

On April 22, Mali was targeted by a series of explosions that hit the vicinity of an airport at the centre of the country.

The blasts left ten civilians dead, along with three military personnel. At least 88 other people were injured.

The blasts also inflicted heavy material damage to the area where they occurred.

Successive attacks

According to the International Terrorism Index for 2023, Mali ranks fourth in the world in terms of the percentage of victims of terrorist operations, three places ahead of the previous year.

This indicates the deterioration of the security situation in the country and the increased activity of terrorist groups in the region.

On December 7, 2022, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack in Java that killed at least a hundred people.

On September 9 of the same year, ISIS carried out an attack in the same area that killed about 30 people.

These operations are among the 20 most violent terrorist operations that occurred globally during 2022, along with another operation that no one adopted. This attack took place in Java as well on August 7, 2022 and left 42 people dead.

Localization of extremism

The occurrence of major operations in Mali indicates the wider capabilities possessed by terrorists in the region that enabled them to carry out more bloody operations to serve their interests in localizing extremism geographically and competing with each other for the region.

The same organizations exploit their media platforms in giving an inflated mental image of their influence in the region.

Professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo, Said Sadek, said with the succession of terrorist attacks in Mali, visions differ about the effects left by the French military withdrawal from the country.

“Western capitals, especially Paris, seek to fight terrorism in some areas as a methodology to ward off extremism and keep it away from their borders,” he told The Reference.