For several days, Malian army positions have been attacked by armed groups in the north of the country.
Is this the end of the Algiers Agreement? Officially known as the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, this text was supposed to put an end to the conflict that has been tearing apart this vast Sahelian country since 2012. It was signed on 15 May and 20 June 2015 in Bamako, after negotiations in Algiers between the Malian government and the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), a coalition of armed groups that emerged from the rebellion that began in early 2012.
For several weeks now, the “ex-rebels” have been attacking Malian army bases in the north of the country. The authorities in Bamako are still refusing to accept this as a resumption of belligerence between the Malian army and the former rebels, preferring to refer to operations pitting the army against “armed terrorist groups.”
The groups that have taken up arms against regular army units include several politico-military entities based in the north of the country. They include elements that started the rebellion in 2012, but now include other players.
This coalition, self-proclaimed as a “Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD),” came into being in April 2021 and was formalised in May of the same year at the instigation of the Italian NGO Ara Pacis.
Although it had brought together most of the politico-military entities involved in the peace process, the CSP-PSD had not managed to gain the recognition of the authorities in Bamako. The gulf between the two parties widened profoundly in December 2022, when the components of this grouping suspended their participation in the organs of the Peace Agreement, demanding that an “emergency meeting” be held in a “neutral venue” to assess the implementation of this document, which, eight years after it was signed, has made little progress. A situation that has above all benefited the jihadists, who have extended their influence over a large part of the north of the country.
The last straw
However, it was the decision taken last January by the authorities following the coup d’etat of May 2021, the second in ten months after the one that deposed the elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, to suspend the allowances granted to the representatives of the armed movements within the bodies of the Peace Agreement that was the last straw. Since then, on several occasions, the two parties have been on the brink of confrontation. This finally came to pass following the early withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) from its base in Ber, in the Timbuktu region, allowing the army to regain a foothold in this locality, which had been under the control of the former rebellion for a decade.
The Malian armed forces (FAMA) were not content with occupying the camp left by the MINUSMA. They have also forced the ex-rebel fighters to leave the town, even though the latter believed that it should revert to them until the reconstituted army advocated by the Agreement resulting from the Algiers process was put in place, referring to the ceasefire agreement signed in May 2014, which provided for a freeze on the positions of the belligerents.
Bamako loses allies in the north
Today, even if the Malian state is still slow to admit it, the former rebellion seems to have well and truly resumed. This is evidenced by the claims of the assaults launched on 12 September against the town of Bourem, in the Gao region, and that of Lere, in the Timbuktu region, on Sunday 17 September.
The CSP-PSD fighters come from the various politico-military movements of the 2012 rebellion: the ‘Mouvement National pour la Liberation de l’Azawad’ (MNLA), the ‘Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad’ (HCUA) made up of defectors from the jihadist group Ansar Dine, and the ‘Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad’ (MAA).
The CSP-PSD also includes in its ranks movements from the Algiers Platform of 14 June 2014, originally composed mainly of pro-government armed groups. Also a signatory to the 2015 Agreement along with the CMA, the Platform comprises a branch of the ‘Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad’ (Hanoune Ould Sidi Ali tendency from Gao) and the ‘Groupe d’Autodefense Imghad et Allies’ (GATIA), notably the tendency favourable to Fahad Ag AL-Mahmoud. The latter has distanced himself from General Elhadj Ag Gamou, who was the GATIA’s military authority. In an appeal made public on Monday 18 September and authenticated by APA, Fahad AG Almahmoud called for the formation of a grand alliance of Tuareg movements against the Malian army.
Also close to Bamako, the Movement for the Salvation of the Azawad Tendency Daoussahak (MSA-D), whose secretary general is a member of the National Transitional Council (the provisional parliament set up by the transitional authorities in Mali), has not yet explained its position.
Are these jihadists spectators?
Alongside these various armed groups, a large part of northern, central and eastern Mali is home to several jihadist groups, some of them rivals. These include the ‘Groupe de Soutien à l’Islam et aux Musulmans’ (GSIM) – a coalition formed in 2017 and the main ally of al-Qaeda in the Sahel – and the Sahelian branch of the Islamic State, formerly the ‘Etat Islamique au Grand Sahara’ (EIGS), which was formed two years earlier.
To date, there is no indication that these two groups are taking part in the recent or ongoing clashes between the rebels and the regular army. In 2012, Islamist groups close to al-Qaeda-linked jihadists lent a helping hand to the Tuareg rebels before supplanting them to occupy all the towns in the north of the country, from which they were dislodged a year later by the Serval intervention at Bamako’s request.
