On April 25, 2026, Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wAl-Muslimeen (JNIM), also known as the Group For Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM), Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the West African Sahel, launched coordinated nationwide attacks alongside Tuareg separatists from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), striking multiple cities from Kidal and Gao in the north to Bamako and Kati in the south, resulting in the death of Defense Minister Sadio Camara and temporary seizures of key towns.[1]
Despite reliance on Russian Africa Corps mercenaries after distancing from Western partners and the UN, the junta has struggled to contain JNIM’s advances, raising fears of further state weakening or collapse in the Sahel.
The group is led by Iyad Ag Ghali, who plays a central role in coordinating operations, forging local agreements with communities, imposing taxes and governance in controlled areas, and overseeing the group’s expansion southward and its recent large-scale offensives. He is widely regarded as Mali’s most wanted man and remains a high-value target for the Malian junta, Russian forces, and international actors. In the context of the April 2026 attacks, he is one of the key figures behind the coordinated GSIM operations.
The following report provides insight on Iyad Ag Ghali collected from content that MEMRI JTTM team have documented since his emergence as a key figure in GSIM.
Nationality: Malian
Date of Birth: 1958
Assumed Location: Mali
Iyad Ag Ghali, also known as Abu Al-Fadl, leads Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wAl-Muslimeen (JNIM), also known as the Group For Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM), Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the West African Sahel.
The group is a coalition of Al-Qaeda-aligned jihadi groups in the Sahel including Ansar Dine, elements of AQIM’s Sahara branch, Al-Mourabitoun, and the Macina Liberation Front. Ag Ghali, who has been involved in jihad for decades and has headed the group since its formation in 2017, was placed on the U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist List in 2013.[2]
Hailing from the influential Ifoghas tribe, of Tuareg origin, in the country’s northeastern Kidal Region – an area long beset by ethnic tension – he led several uprisings against the Malian government in the 1990s and early 2000s.[3]
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Masra weekly published on April 3, 2017, a full-page interview with Ag Ghali in which he said he was born in Mali in 1958.
He claimed that he established and led the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MPLA) and underwent military training in Libya from 1978 to 1990. He further mentioned that he received military training in Syria and fought in Lebanon against Israel from 1981 to 1983. In that interview, he discussed his fight against the Malian government from 1990 to 1991, citing his role in the negotiations between the Tuareg and the Malian government in 1991.[4]
From 1998 to 2011, he said, he was a member of the Islamist Tablighi Jamaat Movement, and in 2008 he was named Mali’s consul general in Saudi Arabia, where he began his relationship with jihadis there. Since 2009 he has been part of the circle of jihad in Mali.[5]
As a result of his jihadi activities since the early 1990s, Ag Ghali emerged as a kingmaker of sorts, who was often called upon to mediate or negotiate between local and regional powerbrokers. For example, in 2003, it was reported that he successfully secured the release of 14 European tourists kidnapped by a group of militants that later became Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).[6]
In 2011, Ag Ghali manifested his Salafi-jihadi fervor in the formation of Ansar Dine, a Salafi-jihadi Tuareg militant organization that aims to impose shari’a in Mali.[7]
The group – in cooperation with several other militant ethnic and Salafi-jihadi organizations – captured large swaths of northern Mali during the 2012 Tuareg Uprising, which led to the ouster of Mali’s then president by military coup before French forces intervened to stabilize the situation. During this time, Ansar Dine attracted global media attention for destroying UNESCO world heritage sites that the group deemed as idolatrous in Timbuktu.[8]
In 2012, Ag Ghali’s Ansar Dine and AQIM reinforced its ties, and the same year, they joined forces with the Movement for Unification and Jihad West Africa (Mouvement pour l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest – MUJAO) to define a combat strategy against the French and Malian armed forces. Ag Ghali’s Ansar Dine received backing from AQIM in the fight against Malian forces when Ag Ghali’s men captured the towns of Aguelhok, Tessalit, Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu between January and April 2012.[9]
Such links led Ag Ghali to be added to the U.S. and UN lists of Specially Designated Global Terrorists for his cooperation with AQIM. Ansar Dine itself was identified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and UN in March 2013.[10]
Ag Ghali rejected the peace agreement between rival Tuareg groups and the Malian government, saying in an audio statement in October 2015 that the “humiliating agreement” is aimed at promoting a secular, anti-Islamic state.[11]
Amid efforts to broker a peace deal between the various antagonists in Mali in 2016, the force under Ag Ghali’s command continued throughout 2016 to claim responsibility for attacks against Malian and French forces, as well as the forces of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).[12]
In March 2017, Ag Ghali, along with other militant leaders, announced the formation of Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam Wal-Muslimeen – Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims (GSIM) in a video address, during which he pledged the group’s allegiance to Al-Qaeda.[13] The group is best described as a coalition of armed Salafi-jihadi groups headed by Ag Ghali. It comprises four Sahelian militant groups that merged under his leadership in 2017: Ansar Dine, which was previously under his command, as well as Al-Murabitoun, Katibat Macina, and the Sahara branch of AQIM.[14]
These groups retain some degree of operational autonomy, despite having unified under the same banner, and thus the organization is markedly decentralized. Nonetheless, AQIM accepted the organization’s pledge of allegiance in March 2017.[15] Since then, GSIM has carried out regular attacks on Malian and French security forces, UN peacekeepers, and other targets.[16]
As GSIM’s leader, Ag Ghali’s political influence has greatly expanded in concert with the group’s larger operational area: GSIM now operates across the Sahel, maintaining a presence not only in Mali, but also in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo, among other countries. The group has claimed several recent operations, including a rocket attack against UN peacekeeping forces, two IED attacks on Malian military vehicles, and the reported capture of a Russian mercenary belonging to the Wagner Group.[17]
However, despite sustained violence, recent communiques by the group suggest that it is willing to negotiate with the Malian government over ceasefire terms.[18]
Since GSIM’s formation, Ag Ghali has appeared in several audio and video productions released by the group’s media arm, Al-Zallaqa. For example, in a July 2018 video, he invited foreign fighters to come to Mali to take up arms against French forces.[19]
In a November 2019 audio recording, Ag Ghali congratulated GSIM fighters for attacks on Malian forces and commended Al-Shabab for attacking a U.S. base.[20] He was also featured in an audio recording released on August 10, 2021, in which he disparaged France for its military withdrawal from Mali and encouraged Muslims to wage jihad against France, Jews, Crusaders [Westerners], and apostates.”[21]
After French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of French forces from Mali in February 2022, a decision welcomed by GSIM as a “harbinger of victory,”[22] the group continued to claim responsibility for attacks against Malian and Burkinabe forces,[23] as well as attacks in neighboring countries such as Togo and Burkina Faso, to show it can expand its operational range.[24]
In November 2022, pro-Islamic State (ISIS) media outlets reported that Ag Ghali’s son was killed in clashes with ISIS affiliates near the town of Aghazarghazen in the Menaka region, Mali.[25]
On December 12, 2023, Ag Ghali, a video message titled: “And Allah Will Surely Support Those Who Support Him.” The video featured the group leader reading a message from a laptop. In his speech, he called on Muslims in the Sahel to join the ranks of jihad against the governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, as well as the Russian-funded Wagner Group. In a final note, he praised the Hamas October 7 attacks on Israel and prayed for Allah to ease the suffering of Gazans, condemning Israel’s military operation.[26]
[2] US State Department, Office of the Spokesperson, February 26, 2013.
[6] Akhbaralaan.net/news/exclusive/2021/12/15.
[9] United Nations, Security Council Sanctions, February 25, 2013.
[10] U.S. State Department, Office of the Spokesperson, February 26, 2013.