NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS AND ILLICIT ECONOMIES IN WEST AFRICA. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM)

By Héni Nsaibia, et al.

  This report analyzes the operations and organizational structure of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) in the Sahel region of Africa, focusing on the group’s engagement with illicit economies and tactical use of economic warfare. Specifically, the report emphasizes the central role of illicit economies in JNIM’s governance strategies, and in financing and resourcing the group’s armed struggle. It also tracks how JNIM has evolved organizationally, with these internal changes dictating shifts in its involvement in regional illicit economies. These political and organizational changes, and the group’s highly strategic engagement with illicit economies, have underpinned JNIM’s expansion into new geographies, its retention of influence in areas of control, and its resilience to disruption. Further, the report provides further insights into JNIM’s strategies for expansion and population control, and argues that understanding the role of JNIM within illicit economies is crucial to gaining insights into the group’s governance, financing, and resourcing, as well as its strategic objectives across the central Sahelian states of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and the northernmost areas of several West African littoral states. JNIM’s organizational structure balances unity and central power with local adaptation and flexibility, which has allowed the group to build a cohesive yet adaptable organization. However, the group’s exponential growth since its formation strains ongoing cohesion, and operational and tactical objectives differ due to differences within the vast territories in which the group operates. JNIM exerts control and authority over local populations by force using both violent and non-violent means, such as providing civilian services, justice, and dispute mediation; these means vary depending on the context. This unified and locally flexible strategy is also evident in JNIM’s strategic engagement with local licit and illicit economies. While JNIM’s engagement in illicit activities is intimately linked to the diverse financing and resourcing of JNIM’s war economy, it goes beyond merely accumulating financial resources. JNIM utilizes these resources to enhance its legitimacy and to gain  popular support while furthering its strategic and governance objectives. Further, JNIM’s quasi-regulatory role in certain illicit economies – including in enabling access to some stateprohibited resources – is central to its positioning as an alternative governance provider, posited as preferable to regulatory regimes imposed by the state. The under-explored dimension of economic warfare is highlighted in the report as a vital component of JNIM’s overall strategy, which encompasses the destruction and sabotage of critical and public infrastructure, the establishment of checkpoints along transport routes, attacks on commercial and logistic convoys, the imposition of embargoes and blockades, and other tactics such as forced population evictions. The economic warfare dimension of JNIM’s strategy significantly overlaps with the organization’s effort to expand its competitive systems of control over the population, through which JNIM seeks to weaken the state and impair its authority. The report concludes by forecasting the trajectory of JNIM’s expansion, especially in light of evolving state responses. Given its current organizational structure and adaptive strategies, JNIM appears poised to continue its growth and influence. The group’s strategic use of illicit economies and economic warfare serves as a potent driver of its territorial control strategies, and these elements are expected to remain integral to JNIM’s operational blueprint. As state actors devise their own strategies to respond to JNIM’s activities, the group’s adaptability will be put to the test. The effectiveness of these state responses, in turn, will hinge on a profound understanding of JNIM’s organizational dynamics, its strategic engagement with local economies, and the ways in which it navigates and leverages the complex socio-political landscapes within which it operates. Anticipating the future of JNIM necessitates a sustained and nuanced focus on these factors. This report aims to contribute to such an understanding, providing a foundation upon which more effective and informed strategies can be developed to address the challenges posed by JNIM in the Sahel region  

Issue 1

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime 2023. 49p.