Mali: A Strong Centre and Unruly Peripheries — The Unravelling of Agreements and the Rise of Armed Movements

By Muhannad Awad Mahmoud

Mali is currently witnessing a defining moment marked by a clear paradox: a centre that remains relatively cohesive under army control, and peripheries that have slipped from the state’s grip, turning into open arenas where Azawad movements, jihadist groups, and transnational smuggling networks vie for dominance.

Since the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, large numbers of Tuareg fighters who had served in Libya poured into northern Mali, returning with medium and heavy weaponry and extensive combat experience. With weak state institutions and chronic underdevelopment in the Azawad regions, these returning fighters found fertile ground to establish the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). Other factions later joined, forming the “Coordination of Azawad Movements” (CMA), which gradually raised its demands towards wide autonomy or even de facto independence.

Armed with advanced weaponry and high mobility across the desert, the Azawad movements seized vast areas in the north, taking advantage of the Malian army’s collapse and indiscipline at the time. The armed forces numbered only a few thousand soldiers with modest equipment, while the CMA was able to mobilise up to ten thousand fighters at its peak—mostly Tuareg returnees from Libya or members of tribes with deep roots in Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao.

Opposing the CMA was the “Platform of Movements”, a pro-Bamako northern coalition fighting alongside the state. It included GATIA—closely linked to senior army officers—the Arab wing of the Azawad movement, and several tribal militias allied with Bamako against the CMA.

This fragile balance prompted Algeria to lead a lengthy mediation process that culminated in the signing of the 2015 Algiers Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, a comprehensive framework centred on restructuring local governance, expanding decentralisation in the north, implementing a disarmament-demobilisation-reintegration (DDR) programme, and forming joint military units composed of the army and former combatants.

However, the agreement was born with fundamental flaws. It excluded key actors in central Mali, including jihadist groups and local militias; the government failed to provide a clear, functional model of decentralisation beyond conventional municipal structures, while the Azawad movements accused Bamako of deliberately stalling the transfer of real authority to the northern regions. Matters worsened as the DDR process stalled, proceeding slowly and in fragments, producing no effective joint force capable of operating on the ground.

The military coups of 2020 and 2021 then dismantled what was left of the political process. The African Union suspended Mali’s membership, condemned the coups, and called for a return to constitutional rule. But its influence rapidly declined as Russia expanded its presence through the Wagner Group—later replaced by the “Africa Corps”, a Russian unit under the Defence Ministry that provides combat forces, trainers, intelligence units, and logistical support while securing vital mining sites. This partnership gave Bamako the political and military cover needed to retake key cities such as Kidal in late 2023—but it did not grant the state meaningful control over the vast desert terrain where the CMA and its allies continually regroup.

Amid these shifts, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso withdrew from ECOWAS after disputes over sanctions imposed due to their coups, announcing the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—a new framework centred on collective defence and signalling their departure from their traditional regional sphere, drawing them further into Moscow’s orbit. Yet, despite its political value, the alliance has failed to offer viable economic or security solutions to the deep crises overwhelming rural regions.

Today, the field situation reveals a state holding its cities but losing its peripheries. The Malian army and the African Corps maintain control over regional capitals. At the same time, the CMA manoeuvres freely across the desert, relying on ambushes, hit-and-run tactics, and supply-line disruption. They are gradually reclaiming positions outside urban centres. Meanwhile, ISIS expands in Ménaka and along the Nigerien border, asserting dominance over villages and trade routes, while al-Qaeda strengthens its grip in central Mali and around Timbuktu, using assassinations, IEDs, and nighttime control of rural settlements. Caught between these forces, the state remains in a defensive posture despite Russian support, lacking the logistical and intelligence capacity needed to control a vast geography inhabited by tribes, armed groups and smuggling networks.

The northern economy is collapsing: trade routes have been cut, checkpoints have raised transport costs, displacement is increasing, food prices are rising, and the government’s ability to provide public services is eroding. Residents increasingly feel that the state’s authority over the peripheries exists only on paper.

This grim picture becomes even starker when contrasted with other regional experiences—most notably Sudan. Despite its own war, Sudan represents a reverse scenario: a state whose army remains cohesive, controls the centre, and has contained the fighting to specific regions (Darfur and Kordofan), advancing steadily on those fronts. Unlike Mali, Sudan’s armed forces have not fractured, nor has the country lost its peripheries to rival armed movements.

Sudan also benefits from a very different social and political environment: a broad popular alignment behind the armed forces and joint forces, with a deep societal understanding of the nature of the conflict and the dangers of replicating the Malian model of fragmented authority. This popular cohesion—alongside strong public rejection of unrestrained ceasefires or vague political settlements—keeps Sudan distant from the trajectory that led Mali into structural collapse, where eroded agreements opened the door to multiple centres of armed power and expanded foreign intervention.

The firmness of Sudan’s popular stance—insisting on one state and one legitimate army—means that Sudan’s future hinges on its forces’ ability to complete the battle and defeat the rebellion, or to impose a genuine agreement that dismantles the militia rather than appeasing it. Meanwhile, Mali remains trapped in a vacuum where armed actors and foreign powers shape the conflict’s direction—its fate determined not in the capital, but by whoever commands the initiative in the desert.

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