JNIM–ISSP war
armed conflict
The JNIM–ISSP war is an ongoing armed conflict between Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP), the Sahelian branches of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, respectively. Since ISGS's formation in October 2016 and the creation of the JNIM coalition in 2017, the two groups had been described as the Sahelien exception or Sahelien anomaly: despite the global war between al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates since the latter's splinter from the former in 2014, both ISGS and JNIM have ignored each other and in rare cases worked together against Malian, Nigerien, Burkinabe, French, Russian, and international governments and non-Islamist militias until 2020.
The first ideological split between the two groups began in early 2019, but intensified in the summer 2020 due to a variety of factors. JNIM press releases in 2019 attempted to mend the split between the two jihadists groups and called for unity, but by early 2020, JNIM began calling the ISGS "khawarij", a pejorative term for a historical group of Muslims who fought against the first Caliphate for inconclusive reasons. The ideological split was fueled by more confrontational propaganda after ISGS became an official province of the Islamic State under ISWAP in early 2019, and propaganda outlets fell under ISWAP control. ISGS referred to JNIM leaders Iyad Ag Ghaly and Amadou Koufa as allied with the Malian government to fight the ISGS, and accused them of starting a war. Issues between the treatment of the local population and minority groups also differed between the two groups, and both ISGS and JNIM championed themselves as protectors of Fulani.
Clashes first broke out in March 2019, with attempted negotiations to reconnect the two groups occurring in the following June and October. By January 2020, the war between the two groups was in full swing, and 125 clashes had been reported between the two groups and 415 fighters killed on both sides between 2019 and 2021. These clashes took place in eastern Mali's Ménaka and Gao regions and northern Burkina Faso.
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