Al-Qaeda-linked armed group JNIM releases propaganda video of Mali attack

The Al-Qaeda-linked armed group Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has released a propaganda video of the attack on 25 April 2026 against the Malian army camp and the airport in Sevaré, near Mopti, in central Mali.

This attack was part of a series of coordinated attacks on the same day, which resulted in the recapture of the town of Kidal by northern separatists and the assassination of the Malian defence minister, Sadio Camara in Kati, near Bamako.

This attack is the largest carried out by an armed group since 2012, the year in which armed groups took control of northern Mali.

Bakary Sambe, regional director of Timbuktu Institute, an African Center for Peace Studies based in Dakar Senegal said that the video showed JNIM is "no longer the jihadist group we used to think was confined to the bush or rural areas."

He added: "JNIM has demonstrated its ability to infiltrate urban areas, to penetrate high-security locations such as the airport and the (military) camp in Sévaré, but also to unsettle both the Malian army and its Russian allies, who were unable to defend Mali."

The footage shows JNIM employing various military means to reach the military camp and the airport, including the use of drones to target the airport or to guide ground fighters to their targets.

"What JNIM has managed to do is gradually trap Mali in a state of neither peace nor war, and in this 'twilight zone,' deploy an increasingly aggressive strategy while also carving out an image for itself as a political actor," Samba said

The Malian government, which does not usually release figures on attacks by armed groups, announced that these coordinated attacks on 25 April 2026 left 16 people injured and one dead.

On Thursday, the Malian government announced rewards for any information leading to the "arrest" or "neutralisation" of the leaders of the JNIM armed groups and the separatists in northern Mali.