Last month, Islamist insurgents in Mali nearly toppled the military junta running the landlocked West African nation, and they still might. In a stunning offensive that was coordinated with Tuareg separatist fighters, thousands of jihadists from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) attacked army bases hundreds of miles apart, killed the defense minister in a daring attack near the capital, Bamako, and captured several strategic towns in the north. The junta is now on the back foot as JNIM maintains its monthslong blockade of food and fuel to the capital and continues its offensive operations in rural Mali.
Since 2012, when jihadists took advantage of a Tuareg rebellion to ramp up their attacks in Mali, I have spoken with hundreds of villagers, imams, politicians, soldiers and people aligned with and living in JNIM-controlled areas. And what I increasingly hear from them these days is that there is no military solution to the conflict. It is time for Mali’s government and JNIM to talk.
Talking to terrorists to settle a civil war might seem unfathomable. But there is a template for bringing a terrorist insurgency in from the cold: Syria. There, al-Qaida-affiliated militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) made the transition from being a U.S.-designated terrorist group to pragmatic caretaker of the country’s post-Assad government. HTS’ leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, went from having a $2 million bounty on his head to being Syria’s interim president and feted at the White House.