The Hotel Attacks and Militant Realignment in the Sahara-Sahel Region

Abstract: The attack on Bamako’s Radisson Blu Hotel in November 2015 shocked Mali and confirmed the reach of jihadist group al-Mourabitoun and the continued challenges to security in the region. The attack also marked the absorption of al-Mourabitoun into al-Qa`ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) amid tests to AQIM’s position from fighters who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. AQIM and AQIM-linked groups have also expanded their operations across Mali and the wider region, a trend that will likely continue in 2016, as illustrated by the January 2016 attack on the Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino Café—both popular with foreigners—in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou. This latest attack killed at least 29 people and wounded dozens more.

On November 20, 2015, two attackers stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali. Armed with assault rifles and grenades, the men rampaged through the hotel, one of the most luxurious in the city and supposedly one of its safest. After hours of fighting and the intervention of Malian and French Special Forces,[1] the two gunmen lay dead and unconfirmed rumors spread that other shooters may have escaped.[2] In the end, the two terrorists killed 19 people in the hotel, including several Malian security guards, a Senegalese businessman, six Russian airline employees, an American health worker, three Chinese railroad executives, and a Belgian parliamentarian.

The jihadist group al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for the attacks on Twitter and in communiqués sent to Al Jazeera, published online, and sent to the Mauritanian newspaper al-Akhbar.[3] Al-Mourabitoun, led by the al-Qa`ida-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar and created in 2013 after Belmokhtar’s departure from AQIM and the French military intervention in Mali in January 2013, merged the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and two of Belmokhtar’s brigades.[a]

Two days later, another Malian militant group, Front de Libération de Masina (FLM), claimed credit for the attack, saying it was carried out in collaboration with the Malian Tuareg-led jihadist group Ansar al-Din.[4] But AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel (Abu Musab Abdelwadoud) released a video claiming credit for the attack and announcing al-Mourabitoun’s allegiance to AQIM.[5] The group also released photos of the two attackers, and Mali’s chief prosecutor later confirmed that a slip of paper found in the pockets of one of the attackers indicated that the attack was conducted by al-Mourabitoun.[b] This month saw the same group claim responsibility for an attack on a hotel and café in Ouagadougou which killed at least 29.

This article will provide an initial assessment of the information available about the attacks as well as the context and significance of the militant realignments in the Sahel with a particular focus on the possible influence of the Islamic State on these changes. It will also examine how the militant landscape in the region may evolve in 2016.

Targeting and Significance
The luxury Radisson Blu sits in one of Bamako’s newer neighborhoods, ACI 2000, and until the attack, it was considered one of the city’s safer hotels.[c] However, the two attackers were able to overcome security measures rather easily. According to witnesses, the attack began in front of the hotel just before 7:00 AM when the men pulled weapons and grenades from suitcases and killed several guards before storming into the lobby and adjacent restaurant where hotel patrons were sitting down to breakfast. The gunmen then proceeded to search the hotel’s kitchens and front-of-house areas, reportedly firing into elevators where guests sought shelter, before moving from floor to floor looking for other guests. The nature of the attack itself also remains somewhat unclear. Associated Press reporter Baba Ahmed reported that the gunmen shot at anyone in sight while initial accounts from witnesses suggested that some hotel guests were released after demonstrating some knowledge of Islam.[d] Malian and French special operations forces finally killed the men on the hotel’s third floor, more than nine hours after the assault began.[6]

Immediately after the attack, the Malian rebel group Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad (CMA) condemned the incident as an attempt to undermine Mali’s fragile peace process. An Algerian delegation staying at the hotel in advance of planned meetings of the Algerian-led Comité de Suivi de l’Accord d’Alger (CSA) was able to escape unharmed, though the circumstances remain unclear.[7] [e] Other accounts suggest that the gunmen specifically searched for Air France employees staying at the hotel.[8] Eyewitness accounts can be unreliable,[9] and it remains difficult to confirm the veracity of one account or the other. However, in choosing one of Bamako’s best-known hotels, and one that was popular with foreign elites, it should be assumed that the planners sought to target foreigners. This did not stop them, of course, from accepting the death of Muslims in the attack; AQIM and al-Mourabitoun have not shied away from killing Muslims in the past in Mali or elsewhere. However, the choice of target in this case was unmistakably foreigners or those associated with foreign governments—like the meeting of the CSA. The reported separation of Muslims from non-Muslims was reminiscent of previous attacks by al-Qa`ida-affiliated groups, including Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s January 2013 attack on the gas facility at In Amenas, Algeria.[10] And regardless of the target, some jihadist supporters certainly received a message from the Bamako attack, comparing it favorably to the Islamic State-directed assaults in Paris just one week earlier that killed 130 people.[11]

In many ways, the attack on the Splendid Hotel this January followed a similar pattern while also demonstrating evolutions in tactics as well as AQIM and al-Mourabitoun’s media approach. Burkinabé and French authorities are still trying to understand the attack, and initial conclusions drawn after the attack may change as further investigations take place. What is known is that around 7:30 PM on January 15, gunmen opened fire inside the Cappuccino Café, reportedly executing “white” patrons, although a number of Burkinabé citizens also died in the attacks. Simultaneously, the attackers or another group of gunmen (the number of attackers remains unknown)[12] reportedly set off explosives in cars parked in front of the hotel before storming inside to the hotel’s lobby and restaurant, which was filled with Friday evening diners.[13] Other reports indicated that the attackers set off some sort of explosives inside the hotel, presumably in order to slow efforts to retake the site.[14]

It took a combination of Burkinabé, French, and American forces nearly 15 hours to end the siege. The attackers were eventually killed early in the morning in front of an adjacent restaurant. During this time, AQIM released two different statements. One was a graphic incorporating pictures from the attack, and the other was a clip from an audio “interview” between an AQIM member and the attackers while the assault was still underway. AQIM’s al-Andalus media followed these statements with a formal claim of responsibility just two days later, entitled “When Muslim Africa Avenges its Victims.”[15]These statements all focused on the international community and particularly France’s role in the Sahara and Sahel, condemning the actions of the “Crusaders” and their servants. In the official claim, AQIM also says the attack was vengeance for defaming the Prophet Muhammad and that it targeted places that were the centers for “war against Islam and the theft of the riches of Africa.” This is no doubt a reference to the Splendid Hotel’s use not just by NGOs and business people, but also sometimes by soldiers taking part in Operation Barkhane, France’s regional counterterrorism mission that succeeded Operation Serval.[16 ]More broadly the comment may be a reference to the important role Burkina Faso has played for several years as a basing point for French Special Operations Forces (COS) taking part in Operation Sabre,[17] the official name for the COS taskforce in the Sahel.

The statement also made reference to support for jihadis fighting in Syria and Iraq, and the statement alluded to vengeance for crimes committed against Muslims in Central Africa, Mali, and elsewhere in the world. There are no reports of fighters specifically sparing Muslims from violence. The attack killed at least eight Burkinabé, which prompted an immediate backlash from Muslim as well as non-Muslim Burkinabé in the famously tolerant country.

The attack also comes at a fragile political moment not long after Burkina Faso installed its first freely-elected president since 1987, which followed more than a year of political turmoil that included a coup and an attempted coup and the dissolution of the elite Régiment de la Sécurité Présidentielle (RSP). [18]

The Once and Future AQIM?
The reconciliation between AQIM and al-Mourabitoun came about amid competition from a growing Islamic State presence in North Africa and the Sahara/Sahel region, a reorientation of jihadist groups in the aftermath of French military operations in the region, and the longstanding and complex relations between various Algerian jihadist factions. Belmokhtar was among the first Algerian militants to invest heavily in the Sahara, where he formed important marriage, social, and business ties with local populations starting in the late 1990s.[19] These connections and his knowledge of the Sahara helped Belmokhtar maintain a strong degree of independence from the central leadership of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC in French), which officially became AQIM in early 2007.[20] This independence and refusal to follow orders led to significant tension during the occupation of northern Mali by Tuareg rebels and then increasingly by jihadist forces in 2012. These tensions, over leadership, but also the ethnic composition and geographic dispersal of jihadist groups, had already led in part to the creation of MUJAO in 2011.[21] They came to a head in October and November 2012 when Belmokhtar was expelled from AQIM and took much of his Katibat al-Mulathimeen with him.[22] During this time, however, Belmokhtar repeatedly affirmed his allegiance to al-Qa`ida’s central command and its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, possibly vying for recognition that would never come.[23]

Since the Islamic State proclaimed its so-called caliphate in June 2014, it has expanded in both symbolic and real terms in North and West Africa.[24] The group’s biggest successes have come in Libya where, according to a UN report, it may have between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters,[25] and in Nigeria following the acceptance of Boko Haram as the Islamic State’s representative in West Africa.[26] It is unclear, though, exactly how much control the Islamic State’s central leadership exercises over the Nigerian branch now known as the Islamic State’s West Africa Province. Regardless, the Islamic State’s expansion remains contested and uneven in much of North Africa and the Sahel.

In Algeria, several small groups of fighters largely composed of defectors from AQIM have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, notably the group referred to as Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) as well as groups in the wilayat of Constantine and Skikda, both in eastern Algeria.[27] Although Jund al-Khilafa gained public attention with the beheading of French hiker Hervé Gourdel in May 2014, the Algerian army has ruthlessly hunted down the fighters and reportedly killed a large number of them, including the group’s first emir Abdelmalek Gouri and at least one subsequent leader after Gouri’s death.[28] And while the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two IED attacks that wounded Algerian soldiers in the hills near Constantine,[29] at the moment these units remain small and relatively inactive according to Western diplomats and local specialists.[30] In Tunisia, meanwhile, despite the large number of Islamic State fighters from the country, AQIM has maintained a foothold there through Katibat Oqba Ibn Nafi, located primarily in the Jebel Chaambi along the border with Algeria. This group may have been involved in the deadly attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March 2015 that killed 22 people, not the Islamic State, which claimed the attack. The attack has also been attributed to Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, some of whose fighters are linked to the Islamic State and others to AQIM or other groups.[31]

However, developments in Libya and Mali appear to have catalyzed the reunion between AQIM and Belmokhtar’s fighters. In both countries, al-Qa`ida-aligned groups are working to stave off competition from the Islamic State. Although the Islamic State has expanded rapidly in Libya, particularly in the country’s eastern cities of Derna and Benghazi as well as in the central town of Sirte, this push is contested. In addition to facing threats from troops under the command of General Khalifa Haftar, various Libyan cities such as Ajdabiya have seen fierce fighting between Islamic State fighters and a complex array of Islamist and jihadist groups. These include the Fajr Libya coalition and groups such as the Ajdabiyah Shura Council (ASC) and the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen Darnah. Indeed, the U.S. airstrike that targeted Belmokhtar in Ajdabiya in June 2015 reportedly occurred when he was in the city to negotiate a common front against the Islamic State. These talks were part of ongoing discussions between AQIM’s leadership and Belmokhtar in the spring and summer of 2015 about whether to reunify in the face of Islamic State expansion.[32]

These negotiations happened against a backdrop of disagreement within al-Mourabitoun. In May 2015, and without consulting Belmokhtar, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, the titular head of al-Mourabitoun, announced to al-Akhbar that the umbrella group to which Belmokhtar belonged had pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Forced into making an unusual public statement, Belmokhtar quickly countered with a statement criticizing al-Sahraoui and stating that the bay`a (allegiance) did not reflect a decision of al-Mourabitoun’s shura (guiding council).[33] In August, Belmokhtar effectively wrested back control of al-Mourabitoun after the group released a statement appointing Belmokhtar as the group’s emir, formalizing a direct leadership role that he had studiously avoided since the group’s formation in August 2013.[34] Questions remain, however, about Belmokhtar’s status and even possible death after the airstrike in Ajdabiya.[f]

The divisions that emerged in al-Mourabitoun were a long time coming. The leadership arrangements made before the group’s creation meant that it was a compromise between Belmokhtar[35] and Ahmed Ould Amer (also known as Ahmed al-Tilemsi), the erstwhile military commander of MUJAO who had become its paramount figure by the time al-Mourabitoun was founded. To avoid confrontation, Belmokhtar and al-Tilemsi did not seek to take over leadership of the umbrella group. According to Mauritanian journalist and researcher Mohamed Mahmoud Abu al-Ma’ali, the two men agreed not to lead al-Mourabitoun, leaving the command instead to an Egyptian known as Abu Bakr al-Masri.[g] But al-Sahraoui, one of the senior leaders in MUJAO, and some other senior figures initially refused to pledge allegiance to al-Masri, although al-Sahraoui later reversed his position.

When al-Masri was killed in April 2014, al-Tilemsi was appointed emir, before he was killed by French forces in northern Mali in December 2014, leaving another leadership void.[h] Still, according to al-Ma’ali, with Belmokhtar and some members of the group’s majlis al-shura away from northern Mali, al-Sahraoui at this point became al-Mourabitoun’s new emir, a move Belmokhtar and his fighters purportedly viewed as illegitimate.[36]

This split reportedly exacerbated lingering personal and ideological differences between al-Sahraoui’s and Belmokhtar’s factions, with al-Sahraoui growing closer to the Islamic State even as Belmokhtar and Droukdel were in negotiations to reunify their groups. These differences led to al-Sahraoui’s public bay`a to al-Baghdadi in May 2015.

So far, the Islamic State has not publicly recognized or accepted the pledge. The split reportedly led to deadly fighting between the different factions in June 2015 that may have left al-Sahraoui wounded, although very little confirmed information has emerged about these clashes.[37]

In this context, the realignment of AQIM and al-Mourabitoun appears related to the rise of the Islamic State and a need to stave off Islamic State advances and avoid defections. This is particularly important given the important losses that al-Mourabitoun has faced since its formation, including the deaths of al-Masri and Ould Amer in combat with French forces.[38]

For some observers, this need for unity in the face of external challenges has appeared more urgent since September. A series of AQIM videos focused on the Sahara and featuring AQIM’s Katibat al-Furqan commander Abderrahman al-Liby[39] appear to use Islamic State anasheed (religious chants) as well as themes and filming techniques common in Islamic State videos.[i] Perhaps in response to these concerns, AQIM’s Saharan emir Yahya Abu el-Hammam, in his first interview since the French intervention in Mali, told Al-Akhbar that AQIM’s ulema had judged the Islamic State to be illegitimate. He added that it was not obligatory for Muslims to give bay`a to the Islamic State. As for al-Sahraoui, el- Hammam told the newspaper that AQIM was in contact with him and that he hoped God would guide al-Sahraoui in the right direction, suggesting that he had gone astray in giving his support to al-Baghdadi.[40] In the interview el-Hammam also confirmed the new relationship with al-Mourabitoun, saying that the two groups had formed a shura to coordinate their activities.[41]

At the moment, however, open defections among AQIM networks both in North Africa and the Sahara-Sahel region remain limited, a fact that could be due to AQIM’s efforts to exert control over its networks and component parts. Additionally, the lack of defections could be due in part to the fact that AQIM and AQIM-linked groups have recent governing experience, after implementing their interpretation of the sharia over much of northern Mali in 2012 and thus having instituted a form of Islamic governance before the proclamation of the Islamic State under al-Baghdadi.[42]

The Islamic State, al-Qa`ida, and the “Glocal” 
Despite the importance of Islamic State and jihadist competition in fueling group activity, mergers, and divisions in Africa, this international context is insufficient to explain the evolution and permutation of jihadist violence in the Sahel. Local factors and grievances, as scholars such as Caitriona Dowd have argued, play an important role in fueling violence.[43] In the Sahara and Sahel, however, it is best to understand these groups as “glocal”[44]—deeply embedded in local networks while also operating rhetorically and physically against international targets and engaging with issues of international interest.

Immediately following the Bamako attack, a number of observers, particularly journalists, drew a link to the Paris attacks the week before and the jostling between al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State. According to these theories,[45] the Bamako attack allowed al-Qa`ida affiliates to show that they could also strike international targets and acquire international attention. Although this competition might have been a factor, the Bamako attack and subsequent media productions, in fact, demonstrate the interconnectedness of local, regional, and international issues in shaping jihadist violence.

For instance, in the AQIM message announcing the joining of al-Mourabitoun, Droukdel inveighed against France, while both his statement and al-Mourabitoun’s statement about joining AQIM urged unity against the “Crusaders,” echoing common messages of jihadist propaganda. And the choice of the Radisson Blu, a symbol of foreign presence in Bamako, was clearly meant to signal to the broader world that the attack was meant to target foreigners, even despite the hotel’s possible links to the peace process in Mali. Yet the attackers, as announced by al-Mourabitoun and later confirmed in a photo released by al-Mourabitoun via AQIM media outlets, were two young Fulani men who appear to have been from Mali.[j] This shows not just the extent of local recruitment in which jihadist groups active in the Sahara-Sahel region have engaged for years, but also a distinct desire to demonstrate and affirm these local ties as part of a regionally and internationally connected jihadist group.

The Bamako attack also demonstrates how militancy in Mali has evolved after the French intervention in 2013 and, in particular, how it has spread into central and southern Mali. This spread has been spearheaded by some of the same jihadist actors who helped the GSPC and AQIM entrench themselves in the Sahel. This includes Belmokhtar, whose fighters conducted multiple high-profile attacks in Bamako before the Radisson Blu,[k] the AQIM-aligned Tuareg jihadist leader and longtime Malian militant and political actor Iyad Ag Ghali, and a number of close allies of the two involved in the occupation of northern Mali, such as the FLM’s reported leader Amadou Kouffa and a former lieutenant Souleymane Keïta.[46] In his interview with al-Akhbar, el-Hammam confirmed that these groups all maintain ties and coordinate with each other in staging attacks throughout Mali.[47]

This combination of local, regional, and international was also echoed in a video released by AQIM in early January 2016. In one segment, the video shows the intervention of AQIM fighters and particularly Talha al-Liby in a communal meeting in the village of Boudjbeha north of Timbuktu.[48] In the scene, in which al-Liby greets attendees warmly and speaks openly, he condemns France and its actions and policies in northern Mali, warning attendees not to aid France, while also stating that AQIM’s conflict is with France, not with local populations. This, then, is an ostensibly international discourse delivered by a longtime militant with family ties to Timbuktu and local Arab populations known to the community for his role with the city’s Islamic Police during the 2012 jihadist occupation.[49] The video also featured a lengthy speech condemning France from a militant identified as Abu Baseer al-Bumbari, whose name clearly suggests that he is of Bambara and southern Malian origin.[50]

El-Hammam’s interview may have also presaged the Ouagadougou attack. In it, he spoke directly to the states of the region, saying that AQIM would remain neutral to states that did not attack it and would target states that did. During and after the attack, AQIM also emphasized very directly its own regional and local roots. While Burkinabé officials claimed they killed four attackers, AQIM identified three in its official announcement along with photos of the fighters. The three men, all apparently young, were identified as Abu Mohammed al-Buqali al-Ansari, al-Bitar al-Ansari, and Ahmed al-Fulani al-Ansari. The statement clearly identifies them as African Muslims and “knights of Azawad,” and although the statement itself does not state their exact place of birth, the name “al-Ansari” and the Azawad appellation indicates that like the Radisson attackers, they are from the region and most likely from northern Mali.[51] Al-Akhbar also writes that the attackers were from Mali.[52] In addition to involving attackers native to the Sahel, they were certainly familiar with the area and routes into Burkina Faso where they could pass undetected or receive local help; the attackers reportedly arrived in Ouagadougou in 4x4s with Niger license plates, and prayed in the mosque behind the Splendid Hotel in the hours before the attack.[53]

The attack is also notable for the use again of a fighter identified as Fulani, a 30 million strong ethnic and linguistic group spread across the Sahel and West Africa. This shows again the strength of AQIM recruitment in the Sahel. There has been regional concern about the recruitment of Fulani populations to jihadist groups like MUJAO and al-Mourabitoun that have been able to exploit grievances. Fulani populations have increasingly sought to protect themselves in conflicts with rival communities over water access and grazing rights, while they have also suffered discrimination in some areas and repression, particularly in the Central African Republic and Mali.[54]

Looking Ahead
Moving into 2016, the jihadist environment in Mali and the broader Sahara-Sahel region remains in flux even as certain trends seem likely to continue. For several years, even as these groups have maintained a strong presence of North Africans from non-Saharan regions in their ranks, the Sahara-Sahel region’s jihadist groups have increasingly recruited and promoted fighters and commanders from across the region itself. Despite the toll exacted on these groups by Operation Serval and Operation Barkhane, which in December 2015 claimed to have killed a prominent group of al-Mourabitoun fighters near Ménaka in Mali,[55] their operations have not only increased in the last year in northern Mali but also spread increasingly to central and southern Mali.

This trend toward increased attacks across the country is likely to continue while French counterterrorism forces remain spread across the region, especially as Mali’s government struggles both to forge a peace deal with largely Tuareg and Arab rebel groups and reassert its authority over the country. Border regions, especially those with Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, will also likely see more attacks against their security forces and symbols of state authority. These attacks are related to the more “international” attacks of a group like AQIM; indeed, on the same day as the Ouagadougou attack, AQIM claimed credit for kidnapping an Australian couple in northern Burkina Faso.[56] The challenges of security in cities like Bamako and Ouagadougou and the relatively low cost of operations there also make further attacks in regional cities and capitals against foreign targets a significant threat.

It is also likely that competition between the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida-linked groups will continue. Although AQIM has succeeded for the moment in blunting large-scale defections to the Islamic State, this may change in the coming year, especially if al-Baghdadi chooses to recognize al-Sahraoui’s bay`a. This competition could also increase if the continued fighting in Libya pushes Islamic State fighters south in search of refuge and more welcoming operating terrain.

What is clear is that the local security and political dynamics in Mali and beyond will remain an important factor in shaping the interaction between different transnational jihadi groups. The Sahara-Sahel region is not the “ungoverned space” that lingers in romantic imagination. It is, however, a contested space where the issues of migration, movement, and competition for resources (both licit and illicit), space, and political position are all playing out. And in 2016 these issues will be as important to understand as the jostling between al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State. 

Andrew Lebovich is a Ph.D. student in History at Columbia University and a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He focuses on religion, politics, and society in North Africa and the Sahel. Follow @tweetsintheME

Substantive Notes

[a] Belmokhtar’s Katibat al-Mulathimeen (Brigade of the Veiled Ones) and al-Muwakoune bi-Dima (Those who Sign in Blood) joined MUJAO, which broke off from AQIM in October 2011. The group reportedly formed following anger among some Sahran AQIM cadres—especially Mauritanians—that the leadership was too Algerian. MUJAO leaders also were said to have condemned AQIM for not aggressively pursuing jihad. The group recruited Sahelian and West African fighters, although its early focus was on kidnapping for ransom and targeting the Algerian government and security services. During the occupation of northern Mali in 2012, MUJAO worked in some cases alongside AQIM and AQIM commanders such as Belmokhtar, although he may have helped form MUJAO. MUJAO was largely responsible for governing the city of Gao, where the group took a hard line in implementing sharia. On MUJAO’s history and formation, see Mohammed Mahmoud Abu al-Ma’ali, “Al-Qaeda and its Allies in the Sahel and the Sahara,” Al Jazeera Center for Studies, May 01, 2012; also see Andrew Lebovich, “Of Mergers, MUJAO, and Mokhtar Belmokhtar,” Al-Wasat, August 22, 2013.