Imperialist-backed attacks fail in Mali – Revolutionary Communist Group

On 25 April 2026, Malian Defence Minister Sadio Camara was assassinated as part of a series of coordinated attacks by the separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the Islamist Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), with tactical support from Ukraine and France. In response, the Alliance of the Sahel States (AES) launched a swift military offensive against its enemies to defend its sovereignty. VŨ VĂN SƠ reports.

A coordinated terrorist operation 

As minister of defence, Sadio Camara was a key figure in the Malian government and a pivotal officer in the war against Azawad separatists and Islamist militants. A strong supporter of Mali’s sovereignty and the 2020 coup that brought Assimi Goïta to power, Camara was a marked man for both separatist and imperialist interests.  

The car bomb attack that killed Camara only 15 kilometres away from the capital city Bamako was carried out by Al Qaeda-affiliated group JNIM as part of a highly coordinated series of terror attacks with the FLA in several cities across Mali, involving around 12,000 heavily armed combatants – many of them foreign mercenaries – operating far away from their main base in northern Mali. Using remotely-operated drones and Western weaponry such as the French Mistral and US Stinger SAM systems, they were able to target key military and civilian infrastructure in order to inflict heavy military casualties and terrorise civilian populations into withdrawing support for the AES-aligned Malian government.  

Ukrainian involvement

The car bomb attack was reminiscent of the modus operandi of Ukrainian intelligence services the GUR, bearing similarities to assassination attempts against pro-Russian figures in the Donbass and Lugansk regions of Ukraine.

In 2024, the GUR was already involved in providing valuable intelligence to terrorists that resulted in an ambush that killed over 40 Malian soldiers, and led Mali to sever diplomatic ties with Ukraine. Since then, the GUR has continued training and supplying anti-Malian govern-ment forces to weaken Russia, which had assigned private military company Africa Corps (formerly Wagner) to support the Malian security forces against terrorist groups for several years.  

Shifting imperialist tactics

While Ukraine’s involvement in Mali has been documented since 2024, France, which refused to condemn the latest JNIM and FLA attacks, conceals its imperialist strategy. According to RTL, France relies on French-speaking Ukrainian veterans of the Foreign Legion within the GUR, many of whom took part in the French ‘counterterrorist’ operations Serval and Barkhane in Mali and other Sahel countries, to arm and train terrorists in the use of French weaponry. 

Similarly, during the coup attempts on President Ibrahim Traoré in AES member state Burkina Faso in January 2026, and the restoration of Patrice Talon’s reactionary regime in Benin in December 2025, France relied heavily on its proxies such as Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, part of the imperialist-aligned ECOWAS bloc. Côte d’Ivoire funded the latest assassination attempt on Ibrahim Traoré, and along with Nigeria, sent its armed forces to Benin to support Talon’s comprador government.  

Following a series of setbacks in West Africa, France has recently expanded its focus towards anglophone Africa in an attempt to diversify its sources of superprofits and strategic influence, most notably in Kenya, where France co-hosted the Africa Forward Summit in May.

Manufacturing consent for imperialist intervention

Emmanuel Macron and other western leaders have refused to condemn the terrorist attacks or the murder of Camara. Racist western media outlets and ‘international observers’ reduce the AES to an authoritarian proxy of Russia, arguing that Mali is collapsing and that Africans cannot defeat terrorism alone. This manufacturing of consent for French imperialist intervention and undermining of the legitimacy of the Sahel states has forced AES governments to ban French media outlets like RFI and TV5 Monde.   

Since Mali’s independence in 1960, the French bourgeoisie has parasitically exploited Mali and its Sahelian neighbours. In 1968, France eagerly welcomed the coup against Malian socialist president Modibo Keita, preventing monetary sovereignty and closer ties with the Eastern bloc. Since then 50 French military interventions in Africa were conducted, including operations Serval and Barkhane, to keep comprador regimes in place and secure the flow of super-profits from resources like uranium and gold, Mali’s most important export. 

A genuine anti-imperialist movement 

The AES is not a result of Russian schemes, but the product of mass rejection of French imperialism in West Africa. A November 2025 Afrobarometer survey showed that 87% of Malians support the AES. The Sahelian masses rank among the poorest and most exploited sections of the working class in Africa and have experienced firsthand the plunder of their countries’ resources, constant political instability and French ‘counterterrorist’ interventions.

The 25 April terrorist attacks have reinforced the cooperation between the AES nations, logistically supporting Malian armed forces in a swift counteroffensive with Russian support, liberating towns and killing hundreds of FLA/JNIM militants with negligible casualties. Assimi Goita’s government has also reiterated pledges to consolidate Mali’s energy, military, and economic development. This comes after the establishment of the Confederal Investment and Development Bank in Bamako in December 2025, a step towards the AES’ financial sovereignty. Communists and anti-imperialists in Britain must defend the Sahelian peoples’ right to self-determination and oppose imperialist propaganda. 

Hands off the Sahel! 
À bas l’impérialisme! 

Vũ Văn Sơ