The events this weekend and beyond prompted me to write short thoughts,since people not following on daily basis may rightly be confused.Note,Islamic State HASN'T claimed anything yet, and they might not.
But the fight against the "Caliphate" goes on,now with Trump in charge. 🧵

https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/2000169008679489879

So where are we on the map in 2025? Depends on the context. If we want to be strict, we could say that the fight is conducted EVERYWHERE. And I am not kidding here - arrests related to IS have been increasingly visible also in Latin America, owed to gigantic criminal networks...

The buildup was needed to showcase the argument that Mali is only one country of the complex and convoluted picture. Without understanding what happened elsewhere, we can't understand what happened here. With @julesdhl map.
Second part of 🧵- the motives and lost dreams.

https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1991929958726549915

When the last democratic government in this region, under Nigerien President Bazoum, fell in July 2023, many cheered—for true change was on the horizon. The shadow of the French, with their awful reputation, was finally gone, after the back to back military coups in former colonies. Niamey was the final nail in the coffin to that. We are now SOVEREIGN, a word often used ever since to mark the true start of liberty, no longer under Paris's watchful eye.

That eye like Sauron's or Saruman's - if the French wanted us the Malians, Burkinabe, or Nigeriens to turn left, we couldn't possibly turn right. It controlled prices, the gold market, uranium supplies, environment laws and funded terrorists to threaten us, working us to the bone, a work like Sizyphus perhaps.

Ammo? Only if the French allow, so we might aswell shoot with bows and chop trees for arrows, because the French imperialist fears what we would do with that ammo. Even onions weren't spared. The language itself reminds us of the humiliation we suffer in silence, for Paris's Iron Hammer can withdraw support anytime.

Worst of all, the devils of the Seine forced us to negotiate with the Tuaregs or Fulani/Fulbe—old thieves and troublemakers claiming old rights to emirates, sultanates, empires, kingdoms or caliphates on land now rightfully ours (very strong history narrative in the minds of the two jihadi groups, especially regarding Sokoto, Macina and Timbuktu). The land with blood gold, siphoned out all the way to Stambul and Dubai.
Something has to change if we were to make things right. And that change will be us finally wiping out the Arab, Tuareg and Fulani vermins threatening our glorious true African states. And straighting things up with the foreign companies, parasiting our resources for barely any benefit to us here locally. Especially now, when the French overlord is visibly unable to confront jihadists properly and convincingly. And is distracted by the crisis in Europe. We know the craft, we know the people, we know the markets - that's for us to seize. LIBERATION DAY.

And while I am somewhat (somewhat?) overdramatising the whole thought process, I may not be that far from how these people thought to themselves at the time.
Some of the allegations (lack of ammo, interfering in decision making) are true (@MichaelShurkin). That's why there is quite a lot of legitimacy to the grievances that manifested themselves throughout the last few years. It wasn't really that black and white. Especially for us, the Europeans, we have to keep in mind that this story is complicated. The French were arrogant. And the French paid for that.

If only the price wasn't for the Sahel to pay aswell.

The militaries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger gambled hard, convinced that the time is right - they are strong enough to conjure wind and make rain fall if given the chance to truly confront the jihadists or other rebels(especially Tuaregs). On paper, they had strong arguments. If I were to make a comparison, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 came to mind. Putin had also had a very strong strategy on paper, everything seemed fine and dandy. Russia stronk, three days is all we need to destroy the Kyivian nazis.
The devil hid in the details they have however conveniently forgotten. In Russian case logistics and inability to comprehend the Ukrainian will to survive. Agency of lower nations? Who cares. They had expected flowers and the fake nation kneeling to acknowledge the return of the true sovereign. We know how it ended.

Here, we had a multitude of factors shaped locally. Agency of local foreign elements like Arabs and Tuaregs can go to hell.
The answer and solution to the problems? Besides the mentioned above, like reclaiming control over resources like gold, two main ones come to mind:
-Russian mercenary support
-Turkish drones, Bayraktar and later Akinci, who had started proliferating all over Africa and beyond, given their much cheaper cost than the alternative airforce that needs long and costly training for pilots, maintenance of aircrafts noone can afford.

The gamble begins a few months after the second military coup in Mali with the invitation of Russian mercenaries under the command of infamous Prigozhin, but coordinated by the Russian MOD.
Quickly however, the French discovered that aside from anti-insurgency support the Russians had another mission - to humiliate and kick Paris out of Mali. Genocide has begun as soon as the troops from Russia arrived. In one of the worst attrocities at the beginning of 2022, hundreds of people in Central Mali were slain. Then, the Russians staged a provocation, trying to shift the blame from their actions towards the French military - only to get discovered by a French drone arriving to monitor a suspicious burial ground "Caucasian" looking soldiers were busy digging in and throwing dozens of bodies inside. Later confirmed by indepent investigations from major human rights organizations.
bbc.com/news/61257796
It was only a start of massacres, for in the next three years the Russian presence in Central and Northern Mali has signified only one thing - terror. Enough said, that if you look at the reports of the UN, affiliates and independent orgs, acute hunger risk, famine and genocide were silently being conducted on the territory swept by the Russian military. Most of it unknown to the world. I myself have seen most of what could be documented by the Russians themselves.

After a decade of seeing all kinds of death, rarely can I be surprised or moved by anything anymore. And yet, when I saw a year ago videos of the Malian and Burkinabe armies' cabals eating hearts and livers of the enemies, burning dozens of civilian corpses and calling them spoiled meat, alongside with Fulani mothers hanged on a tree with their children bound together for a theatrical effect, shared and gleefuly laughed at by the Russians, I knew that maybe we are still in for a ride - the devil inside humanity is yet to say the last word.
And so begin the coups in Burkina Faso and one final coup in Niger.

Late November 2025.
Mali is still under heavy siege by Al-Qaeda forces.Burkina Faso in quagmire.Niger not any better. And Islamic State is clearly gaining power.
How did we get here? Can Al-Qaeda run the show or cannot as others say?
🧵A three-part thread. Sorry for the delay.

https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1987101818627752324

To get back in time and decide when it went wrong, I was forced to dive heavily (hence the delay, needed to check sources). It's as usual in life complicated.
One direction has roots in Arab/Berber jihadists, veterans of the Algerian civil war and Polisario...

Much to talk about regarding the recent month in Sahel. In this summary, I am going to briefly describe events though their sheer quantity would demand an in-depth analysis.
Starting from overall statistics related to JNIM.
Following @p_vanostaeyen and my own data... we can with certainty confirm that the numbers are still highand depending on the context even higher. The overall count is isually mismatched with reality - jihadists for several purposes provide fewer info on their ops than they have commited in reality, especially ISGS.

We knew there was trouble brewing in Somalia from the Islamic State, and this international squad is a sign of what's to come and why Puntland supported by US forces started its offensive a few days ago.
A Tunisian, Moroccans, Tanzanians, Yemeni, Saudis, Libyan, Ethiopians. 1/3

https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1874493184522490210

2/3

Wanted to take a break, but what is going on in the East, where HTS is not present is getting out of control.
Turkey fanning the flames, its thugs from SNA executing en masse wounded SDF fighters in a hospital.
SDF killing dozens in botched try to quell unrest in Der. Increasing chaos with tribes, where the Kurds are out of their comfort zone, with no population support.
Islamic State insurgency waiting to expand and try the massive assault to rescue thousands of jihadists in prisons.
Where are the Americans?

This week kind of continues the whole month of al-Qaeda in Sahel (JNIM) brazen actions, with high-level jihadists at this point slowly leaving their lairs and operating all over the JNIM operation zone - which means the situation is obviously getting worse for the juntas.

https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1850498535721939431

I started from Niger, but if you check the map and see what happened in Mali, Burkina, Togo, Benin and yes, Niger, then there is no choice but to slowly acknowledge that there is trouble.
If you have been reading my dooming, nothing is surprising - al-Qaeda is coming.

Wanted to abstain but this is too much. If you only get this from that interview then I have no words letf. Especially since It's been a while I saw such an amount of half-truths, lies and gaslighting in one interview.

https://twitter.com/UlfLaessing/status/1790495754198372788

You can bash Americans and French for various reasons. Overconfident, inadequate support, at times arrogant. But it's not about how you can percieve it through biased lens but the reality.
And the reality is as such - thanks to the US, France, EU and Nigeria Niger still lives.

Islamic State Central has just released a video recorded by the IS militants during the attack in Moscow. Multiple bodies and a throat slitting of a dying man were shown in the process. #Russia





In the last moments, the video showed mall burning and militants safely withdrawing from the site.

Americans were warning of the threat of Islamic State Khorasan in a few countries, more recently in Russia with preliminary clashes with Russian security forces earlier this month. Curious if it's them. (Just yesterday they conducted a suicide bombing in Afghanistan's Kandahar).

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1771226977619358178

A very friendly reminder. Very very friendly.

https://twitter.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1765934771039834252?t=NWoRXLBQnGZvvMnMA8ZObw&s=19

Islamic State in Mozambique has released a new photoset from their assault on the Mozambique Defence Forces in Mokojo, Macomia of Cabo Delgado. Dozens of soldiers were killed in the aftermath. #Mozambique





The army seems to have had an aerial support, the defence ended in a total disaster.
I published only a few photos of the whole gallery, with multiple beheaded bodies and at least 20-25 soldiers killed.
A massive loss.

About 50 foreign terrorists now operating in Mindanao, everyone belongs to the Islamic State – says Maj. Gen. Fernando Trinidad, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)
newsinfo.inquirer.net/961159/about-5… przez @inquirerdotnet But, as we have been talking about a lot in recent months with @ZamYusa most of them are Indonesians and Malaysians - in other words regional. News here is about an Egyptian (!) national, i have never heard about him before.