Author: M Barbu

From hunters to militias: The militarization of Dozos in Mali

The first in a series on militarized self-defense and vigilantism, this report examines the structure, operations, evolution, and impact of Dozo self-defense groups in central Mali.

Key findings

  • Dozo militias are not a unified actor, but a fragmented and diverse ensemble of groups. While they share a common identity rooted in hunter fraternities, Dozo armed groups differ greatly in their ethnic composition, structure, leadership, and political engagement. Treating the Dozos as a single category risks overlooking the local dynamics that shape their alliances, behavior, and influence on the conflict environment.
  • Attacks on civilians have considerably undermined the legitimacy of the Dozo militias. Dozos engage in violence against civilians — especially the Fulani, but also other communities. These abuses, often perpetrated under the guise of self-defense or counter-insurgency, have reinforced the perception that Dozo militias are carrying out collective punishment and ethnic targeting. They have also fed into jihadist narratives and fueled militant recruitment. Instead of providing security, their presence is increasingly associated with fear, reprisals, and recurring cycles of violence.
  • Informal ties to the state have both empowered and endangered the Dozos. Cooperation with the state has strengthened the Dozo militias in some areas. However, it has also made them vulnerable to shifting political agendas. In 2023 and 2024, the Malian army and Wagner forces cracked down on some Dozo groups they had previously supported. This shows the contradictory role of the state as a conflict actor and arbiter.
  • JNIM, a jihadist group, has paradoxically become the most effective force in disarming and weakening other non-state armed groups, including the pro-government Dozo militias. Through a combination of coercion, informal agreements, and strategic messaging, JNIM has persuaded or pressured communities to expel or demobilize pro-government self-defense groups in exchange for protection and access to livelihoods. This dynamic illustrates not only the failure of state-led stabilization but also the growing strength and influence of JNIM as the dominant armed actor in large parts of central Mali.
  • Self-defense groups can become a driver of insecurity if left unchecked. Dozo militias, originally seen as a grassroots response to insecurity, often exacerbate violence locally. Their abuses against civilians, particularly Fulani, and their collaboration with state forces and foreign partners have often transformed localized disputes into broader communal wars. They have also been among the first to commit large-scale atrocities against civilians, setting a precedent for collective punishment and escalating cycles of violence.

Self-defense groups that once held social, spiritual, and protective roles within their communities have become entrenched in violence across the Sahel. The weakening of state authority and the escalation of conflict have turned the Dozo into militarized actors.

The word “Dozo” or “Donso” derives from the Bamanakan language, the language of the Bambara, Mali’s majority ethnic group, and means “he who returns home,” referring to a traditional hunter who comes back safely from the bush, usually after hunting game.1 In the Dogon language, the equivalent word is “Dana,” as reflected in the name of the ethnic Dogon-majority Dozo armed group Dan Na Ambassagou, which means “the hunters who trust in God.”

Over time, their role as community guardians shifted. In recent years, particularly in central Mali, Dozo groups have militarized and become increasingly involved in armed conflict. This change occurred in response to increasing insecurity, especially the spread of jihadist groups like Katiba Macina, a group that forms part of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). It was further driven by the state’s weakened security presence — a consequence of the 2012 jihadist takeover of northern and parts of central Mali, which led to the withdrawal of Malian armed forces (FAMa) from many rural areas. FAMa struggled to re-establish control and often abandoned or retreated from military positions under pressure from jihadist attacks. In this vacuum, Dozo militias reemerged as local defenders, organizing military-style formations in different areas. By 2018, much of central Mali, especially the Mopti and Segou regions, had fallen outside effective government control, with Dozo militias and jihadist groups increasingly asserting authority.

Dozo groups now operate in several of central Mali’s most conflict-affected areas, including the Bandiagara, Douentza, Mopti, and Segou regions (see map below). While they often act in the name of protecting their communities, their operations extend beyond village defense as they contribute to the escalation of violence. In particular, they have actively fought JNIM’s Katiba Macina branch and carried out retaliatory attacks against civilians, especially Fulani communities accused of supporting or sheltering jihadist militants. Dozo militiamen establish checkpoints as a common practice in various parts of central Mali, including on key transit routes to monitor people’s movements, collect informal tolls, and exert control. These checkpoints have also become sites of abuse where travelers, especially those from the Fulani community, are subjected to extortion, harassment, abductions, detention, and sometimes even torture and summary executions.

Despite often feeling abandoned by state forces due to delayed military support, lack of coordination, or being left exposed after joint operations,2 Dozo militias have repeatedly reengaged with the Malian military and foreign partners like the Wagner Group and Africa Corps when these actors return to their areas to conduct operations. These interactions have led to informal coordination in several military operations, further blurring the lines between state and non-state violence.

This report draws on ACLED data, field research, and interviews with local sources to examine the structure and operation of Dozo groups and their impact on the broader conflict environment. It focuses on three main networks: the Dozos of Macina, the Dan Na Ambassagou movement, and the Dan Na Ambassagou splinter group Dana Atem. Through tracing their evolution, this report provides insights into how Dozo engagement with civilian populations and jihadist groups has exacerbated intercommunal tensions, fueled cycles of violence, and transformed local disputes into widespread communal warfare.

From guardians to armed actors in a fragmented state

The transformation of these groups from traditional Dozo hunters into militarized self-defense groups accelerated after 2015, when central Mali saw a sharp increase in attacks by Katiba Macina. During its early operations, Katiba Macina targeted military and security force positions. The group carried out assassinations of forest guards, local officials, village chiefs, community leaders, and imams who were seen as an obstacle to its goals or who cooperated with the state.3 As violence escalated, state forces gradually withdrew from many rural areas, leaving communities increasingly exposed. In response, Malian authorities began to delegate local defense to fledgling Dozo militias, providing them with training, weapons, and financial support.4 This informal backing enabled the rapid growth of Dozo militias, who accelerated the militarization of community protection — making armed self-defense a defining feature of rural governance.

A key turning point was the 2016 assassination of Théodore Soumbounou, a respected Dogon Dozo leader, at the hands of suspected jihadist militants.5 His killing triggered more organized mobilization among Dogon Dozo groups, particularly in the Mopti region. It was in this context that Dan Na Ambassagou was formed, a structured ethnic Dogon-majority self-defense group aimed at coordinating armed resistance against jihadist influence. Dan Na Ambassagou views itself as a resistance movement against jihadist expansion, but also against the perceived historically rooted threat of Fulani dominance.

The militarization of the Dozo unfolded in the context of long-standing disputes between sedentary and pastoralist communities. Especially, tensions between Dogon and Bambara farmers on one side, and Fulani herders on the other, have repeatedly surfaced around access to land, resources, and political representation. In recent years, these tensions have become more violent, in part due to jihadist groups recruiting marginalized Fulani youth. Accusations of Fulani collaboration with jihadist militants have reinforced mistrust between communities and triggered cycles of violence, drawing civilians further into the conflict. What began as local disputes evolved into a wider pattern of violence, with the continued arming of communities and the militarization of group identities contributing to what in many areas now resembles communal wars. In this broader context of identity-based militarization, the Dozo groups themselves have changed from traditional hunting brotherhoods to militarized militias increasingly carrying out offensive operations against perceived rival communities and engaging in armed confrontations with JNIM militants.

In 2019, a series of local peace initiatives aimed to reduce hostilities between Dozo armed groups and JNIM’s Fulani-dominated Katiba Macina faction. One of the most prominent efforts took place in Macina, Niono, San, and Tenenkou cercles and was mediated by the Ministry of National Reconciliation with support from the civil society organization Faso Dambe.6 These talks brought together Dozo representatives, JNIM intermediaries, and Fulani community leaders, including Boubou Tigal Cissé, who was later assassinated.7 The August 2019 dialogue resulted in informal agreements to limit violence and re-establish a degree of coexistence. Similar processes were also initiated in Djenne and Bankass cercles, with support from a conflict mediation organization,8 involving local officials and community actors.

These agreements, though fragile and largely dependent on individual intermediaries, represented rare efforts to negotiate calm locally. Peace efforts followed years of escalating violence between the armed actors involved, retaliatory violence against civilian populations, and deepening ethnic cleavages. They ultimately fell short of preventing conflict in central Mali from escalating.

Fragmented forces, shared identity: How Dozo militias operate in central Mali

The operational behavior of Dozo self-defense groups in central Mali is diverse and decentralized, with little overarching coordination between the different groups. While these groups are united by the Dozo identity, they are often referred to in the media, however, generically as “Dozos” or chasseurs (the French word for hunters); this designation obscures the significant variation within and between these groups as they differ in structure, leadership, geographic scope, and levels of organization. Treating the Dozos as a single, uniform actor risks misrepresenting their place in the conflict and overlooking key local dynamics that drive violence and construct informal authority.

In the Segou and Mopti regions of central Mali, there are three main Dozo factions (see map below), each of which is composed of numerous subunits. Based on research conducted together with a local research assistant, the author identified, in total, at least 117 Dozo subunits. The following sections describe the three main Dozo factions operating in central Mali, including their leadership, organizational structures, and geographic spread.

Dan Na Ambassagou

The most structured among Dozo armed groups is Dan Na Ambassagou, which presents itself as a resistance force against jihadist encroachment. The group is led by Youssouf Toloba, a long-serving militiaman and key figure in Dogon self-defense mobilization. It is primarily active in the cercles of Bandiagara, Bankass, Mopti, and Douentza and includes several identifiable branches. The most important branches are Dan Na Ambassagou’s main branch covering most of Bandiagara and parts of Douentza, the Bankass branch led by Noel Tessougue, the Fatobougou branch in southern Bandiagara and Djenne’s Fakala commune, and the Waraba and Koudjokouyafan branches in different parts of Tominian cercle.

Dan Na Ambassagou operates with a clear internal hierarchy and maintains political coordination offices in each cercle of activity, including Bankass, Bandiagara, Koro, and Douentza. These coordination units serve as local administrative and mobilization hubs, reinforcing the group’s presence on the ground. The movement has also extended its influence into parts of Segou, with a branch in Niono led by Sine Dembele, and an affiliated group in the village of Nouh-Bozo in Djenne cercle.

Although Dan Na Ambassagou is widely perceived as an ethnic Dogon group, its ranks also include members from other sedentary communities, including the Dafing, Samogo, Bobo, Telem, Mossi, and Bozo.9 However, these alliances have sometimes broken down. For instance, in the area of Timissa inhabited by ethnic Bobo, villagers initially supported or received protection from Dan Na Ambassagou, but distanced themselves amid rising tensions in the area. Many Bobos left, others negotiated arrangements with JNIM, and some faced reprisals from Dan Na Ambassagou.10 This example highlights the internal fractures and limitations of cross-community alliances within the group.

Dozos of Macina

The Dozos of Macina, mostly composed of Bambara hunters, have developed their own centralized structure, with a main base in Souleye under the leadership of Amadou Nionson Diarra. This base coordinates activities across several cercles, including Ke-Macina, Djenne, San, Tenenkou, and Niono. The network is ethnically diverse, including members from the sedentary or sedentarized Bozo, M’Bella, and Rimaibe communities, and is structured through a series of military camps tied to the central seat in Souleye. The Macina Dozos operate in a hierarchical fashion similar to Dan Na Ambassagou, although the political engagement of the Macina Dozos remains limited and informal.11 Until his death, reportedly while in Wagner detention,12 the Muslim religious leader (or marabout) Komani Tanapo served as a key interlocutor between the group and the authorities, particularly during the 2019 local peace processes. Since then, figures like Sinaly Maiga13 and Bandjie Sininta have attempted to assume similar roles.14

Dana Atem

Dana Atem, a smaller Dogon self-defense group led by Sidi Ongoiba, was formed in 2018 following disagreements within Dan Na Ambassagou. Its formation reflects the unease of some Dogon dissidents about the behavior of Dan Na Ambassagou, especially the use of violence against communities. Dana Atem presents itself as a more community-oriented alternative group that relies on cooperation with traditional and elected local authorities and encourages collaboration between the Dogon and Fulani communities to resist jihadist militants.15 It is primarily active in the areas of Mondoro and Koro. Unlike the Macina Dozos, Dana Atem maintains a small political bureau; it operates autonomously and does not openly coordinate or conflict with Dan Na Ambassagou. Its creation points to internal tensions within Dogon self-defense networks, although it does not suggest any broader fragmentation.

Similar to other Dozo self-defense groups, Dana Atem has been involved in communal conflicts, particularly in the area of Mondoro, where intercommunal violence between Dogon and Fulani populations has escalated into armed confrontations between Dana Atem and JNIM subgroups, including Katiba Serma and Ansaroul Islam, both active in the Mali-Burkina Faso borderlands. JNIM militants imposed a blockade on the town of Mondoro in October 2019.16 When JNIM lifted the blockade on Mondoro in June 2023, Dana Atem pledged to surrender its weapons, although many Dana Atem members integrated into the regular army after villages in the area where the militia operates concluded agreements with JNIM.17

State relations and repression

The Dozos’ relationship with the state remains ambiguous. Despite their differences, all Dozo factions intermittently cooperate with the Malian army and its foreign partners. They have sometimes participated in joint operations, shared intelligence, and acted as guides. Despite the government publicly condemning major Dozo abuses and calling for disarmament, the groups continue to operate.18

In 2023 and 2024, however, Malian forces and their Russian allies from Wagner carried out a series of operations targeting Dozo networks in Mopti and Segou. These included arrests, disarmament, and, in some cases, killings of local militia leaders and their associates. The pattern suggested a temporary attempt to restrict the presence of armed actors operating outside the direct control of the state. Marabout Komani Tanapo’s death while in state custody in March 2024 caused particular concern, given his role in brokering local peace agreements and his long-standing support for the Dozos of Macina. While authorities accused him of having ties to jihadists, many people close to the marabout did not believe the allegations and viewed the arrest as at odds with his known mediation efforts.19 He was arrested alongside 22 others. Since then, the authorities appear to have stepped back from such crackdowns, perhaps recognizing the operational utility of Dozo groups as auxiliary forces in areas where the state’s presence remains limited.

A major difference between the most important Dozo networks lies in their degree of coordination and their links to state authorities. Dan Na Ambassagou and Dana Atem are generally better structured and maintain closer relations with political and military actors, which has increased their visibility and influence at the local and national levels.

In contrast to other Dozo factions, Dan Na Ambassagou distinguishes itself through its overt political stance. Its leader, Youssouf Toloba, has repeatedly accused the Malian army of abandoning the Bandiagara region and, at times, issued ultimatums, even threatening to ally with the jihadists or Tuareg rebels if security is not restored.20 While the group benefits from cooperation with the state, it also positions itself as an ally, critic, and substitute of it. Toloba argues that cooperation between the Malian army and Dan Na Ambassagou is essential to facilitate the return of the state and secure Bandiagara and the surrounding areas.21

Common tactics and armament

Despite some tactical evolution, Dozo groups remain disadvantaged in direct confrontations with JNIM, whose militants are more battle-hardened, better armed, and better trained after years of conducting a multi-front war. Dozo militias use a combination of traditional hunting rifles and more advanced firearms, some likely obtained through diversion from state stockpiles. Dozo factions have also developed basic methods to counter IEDs. Dan Na Ambassagou militiamen have been observed carrying Yugoslav and Serbian-made weapons, some in pristine condition.22 These arms give the group a relative edge over other Dozo factions, although they remain militarily inferior to jihadist groups in terms of mobility and tactics, and often rely on improvised armament. For instance, Dozos frequently resort to the “dougouwouli,” a non-portable, artisanal cannon intended to frighten attackers through loud noise.23

Tactically, Dozo groups engage in a mix of village defense and offensive raids on communities suspected of harboring jihadist fighters or sympathizers. For example, in contested areas, Dan Na Ambassagou militiamen maintain checkpoints along key transit routes, including between Sevare and Bandiagara, Bandiagara and Bankass, Bandiagara and Koro, and around Douentza. These checkpoints are often used to extract money from travelers, with Fulani civilians in particular facing harassment, intimidation, or arbitrary detention. The Dozos of Macina engage in similar activities and have taxed, abducted, and killed Fulani road users, merchants, and marketgoers at checkpoints operated in areas such as Mbewani, Siribala, Matomo, and Yolo in Segou. While militias justify these checkpoints as efforts to improve local security, they have also become frequent targets of JNIM attacks. These practices have fueled resentment and further deepened ethnic tensions.

Local perceptions of safety and identity shape interactions between Dozo militias and civilians. In many Dogon and Bambara areas, Dozos are viewed as protectors against jihadist threats. However, among the Fulani community, their presence is seen as hostile.

Opening Pandora’s box: Dozo violence and the escalation of mass atrocities

Mass violence by Dozos marked a turning point in the conflict in central Mali. From 2016 to 2018, violence escalated with frequent armed clashes between Dozo militias on one side and jihadist militants and Fulani militias on the other. Violence became increasingly deadly, with large-scale attacks on entire villages. Dozo militias were behind several of the deadliest incidents, including in the villages of Koumaga, Lessagou-Peuhl, Bombou, and Somena, among others. In January 2019, Dan Na Ambassagou militiamen attacked the village of Koulogon-Peulh, reportedly killing at least 40 civilians. This event was followed by the massacre in Ogossagou on 23 March 2019, in which Dozo militiamen killed approximately 160 civilians.24 Together, these events opened a new chapter in the central Sahel conflict, where localized communal violence evolved into larger campaigns of collective punishment and village targeting. Although not the first mass atrocities in the region, they were unprecedented in scale and impact.

The massacres in Koulogon-Peulh and Ogossagou were widely attributed to Dan Na Ambassagou, although the leadership has denied responsibility. The Ogossagou attack triggered widespread public outcry and resulted in Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, sacking senior military commanders and demanding that Dan Na Ambassagou dissolve. The group refused to disband,25 and the political fallout soon led to the resignation of then Prime Minister Soumeylou Bobeye Maiga.26

Not only did the Dozo militias contribute to an escalation in violence in central Mali, but they were also among the first non-state armed groups in the region to carry out mass atrocities on civilian populations, thereby contributing to a new pattern of warfare, but also the militarization of identities and growing hostilities between Dozo militias on one side and JNIM and Fulani militias on the other (see graph below). Their actions lowered the threshold for violent escalation, normalizing practices such as mass killings, abductions, and village burnings. These early atrocities were not only devastating in their own right but also reshaped how other armed actors operated. Jihadist groups like JNIM began to adopt similar tactics, increasingly framing entire communities as enemies based on perceived support for self-defense groups, militias, and the state.

Despite some local efforts to negotiate calm in the aftermath of the Koulogon-Peulh and Ogossagou massacres, JNIM militants steadily gained ground and began scaling up operations in late 2019, particularly in the Dogon heartland in the Bandiagara region. The group cut off access to key transit routes linking Bandiagara to Bankass and Sevare, blew up bridges to obstruct traffic and military deployments, and intensified attacks on Dan Na Ambassagou checkpoints and on Dogon villages considered loyal to the group. For instance, in the Dogon village of Sobane-Da in June 2019, at least 35 Dogon civilians were killed in an attack likely perpetrated by Katiba Macina militants.27 Over time, JNIM outpaced Dozo militias in scale and intensity of violence (see graph above).

Increasingly indiscriminate violence later extended to Malian military operations. State forces scaled up offensives across central Mali following the deployment of the Wagner Group to Mali in December 2021. Wagner’s presence enabled the return of FAMa to areas from which they had previously withdrawn, including in parts of Mopti and Segou. These joint operations, sometimes involving Dozo militias, also eclipsed militia activity in scale and often resulted in heavy civilian fatalities, further deepening the cycle of violence (see graph above).

These deployments also gave rise to a tripartite alliance among FAMa, Wagner forces, and Dozo militias, which jointly conducted operations against jihadist strongholds and suspected collaborators. However, these campaigns were frequently marked by indiscriminate violence, including arrests, killings, the destruction of civilian property, and large-scale cattle theft.28 The joint counter-insurgent operations often conflated jihadist combatants with non-combatant civilians, in particular Fulani, but also members from other ethnic groups, including Bambara, Dogon, Songhai, Bozo, Arabs, and Tuareg.

Dozo groups participated actively in several of these joint campaigns, which occasionally provided Dozo militias with a renewed presence and firepower. However, once the time-limited operations ended or the military withdrew from rural areas, Dozos became exposed and vulnerable to renewed offensives by JNIM that sought to reassert influence and punish those associated with pro-government forces. The Mopti region, where these dynamics are most visible, has consistently remained the deadliest part of the central Sahel in terms of conflict-related fatalities.

The early involvement of Dozo groups in mass violence has had far-reaching consequences. It shattered their reputation as community protectors and instead positioned them as actors in a broader conflict defined by cycles of collective punishment. The number of civilian deaths caused by Dozo militias has declined since 2021, likely a direct result of JNIM’s intense military pressure against them, as well as JNIM’s own growing influence and capacities. However, the patterns of violence that Dozos have shaped continue to influence how conflict unfolds in central Mali and across the Sahel, including through collective punishment of civilians along ethnic lines and by pioneering mass violence that other actors have also adopted.

How the Dozo and JNIM conflict fueled communal wars

The protracted conflict between Dozo self-defense groups and JNIM militants has evolved into broader communal warfare that has drawn in civilian populations, disrupted livelihoods, and turned village disputes into regionwide struggles for influence in Mopti and Segou regions. In this environment, civilians are both targets and subjects of strategic control, shifting loyalties, forced displacement, and violence from all sides.

Beyond central Mali, these dynamics involving Dozos and JNIM came to have ripple effects on the broader conflict environment in Mali. The intensification of violence, the collapse of local governance, and deepening communal divisions created fertile ground for JNIM to grow and extend its influence beyond its traditional strongholds. After JNIM consolidated control in parts of the conflict epicenter in the Mopti and Segou regions, it used these areas as a staging ground for its expansion into the southern and western parts of the country. This consolidation substantially contributed to the group’s growing presence in the Koulikoro, Kayes, and Sikasso regions — areas that were previously not as heavily affected by the conflict (see map below).

The Dozo militias have not only targeted perceived jihadist collaborators but have also turned on communities within their own ethnic groups who have refused to support them or engaged with JNIM or Fulani communities, showing how coercion and mistrust have fractured relations between and within communities. JNIM has exploited these divisions to expand its influence, sometimes intervening to defend communities that reject Dozo militias — as in Borko in 2020,29 and during the 2022 FAMa-Wagner attacks on the villages of Goumi-Habe and Goumi-Foulbe, which respectively are majority Dogon and Fulani, thus securing local support and legitimizing its presence.

In the wake of indiscriminate violence and abuses against Fulani populations, JNIM has imposed sieges and blockades on towns and villages. It has also pressured communities associated with the Dozos or the state to surrender their weapons and accept JNIM’s authority in exchange for protection and access to livelihoods. Several cases in the Mopti and Segou regions show how this dynamic has transformed localized disputes into communal wars involving entire communities, often along ethnic lines. JNIM attacks on villages perceived as loyal to the state or Dozo groups serve not only as military operations but are also part of the group’s coercive strategy to dismantle local resistance and assert dominance. Similarly, Dozo reprisals have included punitive violence against Fulani civilians, while JNIM militants and Fulani militias have capitalized on these incidents to frame the conflict along ethnic lines. These struggles for dominance have reinforced perceptions of collective punishment and further deepened community divisions. The intertwining of self-defense groups, jihadist militants, and state forces has thus blurred the lines between insurgency and communal war.

For example, in the village of Farabougou in Niono cercle in October 2020, JNIM militants accused Bambara Dozo militiamen of abusing the local Fulani community.30 In response, JNIM militants carried out a mass abduction of marketgoers from Farabougou. Deadly clashes between JNIM militants and Dozos31 ultimately escalated into a protracted siege.32 JNIM militants cut off access to basic goods and threatened reprisals against surrounding communities. The crisis spread quickly across the Niono cercle and surrounding areas, drawing in reinforcements and retaliatory violence. Following the 2020 coup, the Malian junta made a highly publicized deployment to Farabougou, where the army established and maintained a permanent presence to protect the population.33 The siege culminated in a large-scale JNIM attack on the military base in the village on 19 August 2025. JNIM militants overran the base and looted a large amount of weapons and ammunition before burning the site.34 As a result of the attack, both the army and the population left Farabougou. The siege eventually turned what had been a hyperlocalized dispute into a broader conflict that exposed the limits of both community self-defense and state intervention.

A similar situation unfolded in Marebougou, in the Derrary commune of Djenne cercle, where JNIM militants imposed a siege on the village in April 2021.35 The siege was reportedly triggered by a Dozo leader violating a peace agreement by recruiting new members.36 In October 2021, militiamen affiliated with the Macina Dozos and members of Dan Na Ambassagou joined forces in an attempt to break the blockade. The joint effort failed, and the battle resulted in at least 50 people killed, making it one of the deadliest confrontations involving these groups. The fighting soon spread to surrounding villages and also came to encompass the nearby communes of Fakala and Femaye, displacing civilians and further destabilizing the area. This episode illustrates both the tactical limitations of self-defense groups and the growing pressure they face as JNIM expands its presence across central Mali.

Since mid-2023, JNIM has intensified its siege strategy across central Mali, especially in the areas of Macina, Djenne, and Tenenkou, by imposing sieges and exerting pressure on villages associated with the Dozos. In many cases, this coercion led to informal agreements in which residents and militiamen surrendered their weapons to JNIM in exchange for security guarantees and the opportunity to resume farming and other livelihood activities. These agreements often followed evictions or sieges and reflected a systematic approach by JNIM to target clusters of Dozo-affiliated villages to eliminate local resistance and assert control. As a result, entire communities have accepted JNIM’s authority to avoid further violence, contributing to the demobilization of Dozo groups and allowing JNIM to expand its presence with limited resistance. In this way, the group has positioned itself as a more consistent and effective authority than the state or local self-defense groups.

JNIM’s expansion has not been achieved by military means alone. Its rise was also shaped by the collapse of trust in state institutions and the growing perception of Dozo militias as abusive or predatory. By portraying Dozo militiamen as partisan actors and capitalizing on Dozo violence, which is particularly hostile to Fulani communities, JNIM has gained the support of populations who feel threatened or excluded. The early ethnic framing and targeting of the Dozo mobilization have contributed to this shift. By positioning itself as the defender of these communities, JNIM weakened the legitimacy of the Dozos and transformed a local security response into a broader communal conflict. This shift has allowed JNIM to consolidate its authority in rural areas that self-defense groups once defended.

The Dozo militias are no longer engaged in isolated defense actions; they are now involved in a broader conflict over territory, civilian loyalty, and local governance. Their confrontation with JNIM has become a regional struggle for influence and control. As this rivalry intensifies, central Mali remains the deadliest region in the central Sahel, and the persistently high levels of violence and fatalities are linked to these changing dynamics.
Looking ahead: What’s next for the Dozo militias?

The role of the Dozo militias in central Mali is changing rapidly. Under sustained pressure from JNIM, Dozos are losing territorial control and operational significance. Where the Malian army has withdrawn or only operates sporadically, Dozo units are often left exposed. Some have been disarmed or forced to disband by JNIM, while others remain inactive and await the return of military forces or their Wagner partners to resume joint operations.

This disparate military engagement has left communities increasingly vulnerable. When security forces pull back, JNIM often launches retaliatory campaigns against villages it considers allies of the Dozos or the state. These offensives further undermine local confidence in the self-defense groups and force communities to seek alternative strategies for their survival and protection.

In many areas, this has led to informal agreements with JNIM. Communities have accepted the group’s authority in return for the opportunity to resume farming, fishing, trading, and other basic activities to sustain life. Once under JNIM’s influence, communities often have to abide by strict rules, including paying zakat (Islamic taxes or alms), requiring women to wear the veil, and prohibiting demobilized Dozos from wearing their sacred ochre or brown hunter suits. JNIM militants also frequently destroy sacred objects like carved statues and protective amulets and talismans known as “gris-gris” used in local animist practices, which they consider idolatry. These agreements often require Dozos to surrender weapons and restrict their activities, effectively removing their role as community protectors.

This situation presents a paradox, as it is not the state but a rival non-state armed group that is actively dismantling Dozo militia structures. By capitalizing on both the Dozos’ tactical weakness and the fear provoked by their indiscriminate violence against civilians, JNIM has positioned itself as a more capable and effective force in the absence of a reliable state presence. With its coercive strategy through a mixture of threats, sieges, and negotiated settlements, JNIM has succeeded in demobilizing Dozo groups in large parts of central Mali.

At the same time, the Malian state has played an ambiguous role. It has acted both as a party to the conflict and as a mediator in efforts to contain the violence. In December 2020, the transitional government tasked the High Islamic Council with brokering the Niono accords that concluded in March 2021 with a temporary ceasefire between Dozo militiamen and Katiba Macina militants after months of deadly clashes in Niono cercle. While the agreement allowed the Dozos to keep their weapons and granted some concessions to the jihadists, it collapsed within weeks.37 As shown, this and other state-led mediation attempts have not led to long-term solutions, as these fragile agreements often break down with shifting power dynamics or renewed disputes. Instead, inconsistent state engagement has often increased the volatility of local dynamics, creating conditions in which communities must choose between the unreliable protection of the state and its Dozo allies and the coercive stability offered by JNIM.

This shift poses a key dilemma for the future of community security. The Dozo militias were never intended to be formal security forces. Their militarization has entrenched them in armed conflict. Today, their presence can expose the civilian population to greater risks when state forces do not provide sufficient protection. The same populations also face risks of reprisals from state forces and their allies for subjecting themselves to JNIM’s authority and could therefore be accused of complicity with the militants.

Attempts to integrate Dozo militiamen into the national army raise further concerns as Dozo members have been linked to serious abuses, especially against Fulani civilians. Without inclusive processes, proper vetting, oversight, and accountability mechanisms, such integration risks entrenching ethnic bias within the security forces and further undermining public confidence. These limitations have already hampered earlier disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration initiatives and highlighted the risks of integrating irregular forces without addressing community-level grievances over ethnic targeting, impunity for past atrocities, and the lack of protection for marginalized populations.

Stabilizing central Mali requires more than disarmament or the formal takeover of militias. Future interventions must focus on understanding how communities deal with insecurity in practice, how power and legitimacy are negotiated at the local level, and how inclusive public authority can be restored in disputed areas. They also need to examine the impact that militarized self-defense and mobilization along ethnic lines can have on divided societies and broader conflict dynamics. Tackling JNIM’s growing influence and the decline of Dozo militias is about strengthening security on the ground and building a sustainable framework for governance, justice, and accountability in regions marked by armed competition and fragmented state authority.

Dan Na Ambassagou

A detailed profile of the Dan Na Ambassagou militia and its operations in central Mali.

Introduction: Self-Defense Hunter Militia of the Dogon

Dan Na Ambassagou1 is a loyalist umbrella organization of Dogon village self-defense groups (HRW, 4 February 2020). It is active in central Mali, with its stronghold on the Bandiagara Escarpment, otherwise known as the Cliffs of Bandiagara. It is composed primarily of ethnic Dogon but also includes members of other ethnic groups such as the Dafing, Samogo, Bobo, Telem, and Mossi (Resolve Network, 29 November 2021). The movement’s core consists of traditional hunters, Dozo (or Dana in the Dogon language), with the name Dan Na Ambassagou meaning “Hunters who trust in God” (RFI, 17 December 2020).

Moscow’s Balkan Recruits: Russia’s Drive to Enlist Serb Fighters for Ukraine War

epa04638458 Pro-Russian rebels walk at the destroyed Donetsk International Airport, in Donetsk, Ukraine, 26 February 2015. The Russia-backed separatists have said that they have unilaterally begun withdrawing their heavy weapons. Ukraine was to begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line in the country’s east, the Defence Ministry in Kiev said.

KLA trial: verdict nears

The Kosovo Specialist Chamber is expected to rule on the case of Hashim Thaçi and his three co-defendants in the spring or early summer of 2026: the sentence of this controversial trial could potentially have strong repercussions in Kosovo and beyond

Palestinians Still Prefer Hamas and ‘Armed Struggle’ Against Israel

Those who thought that Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip have made Palestinians change their minds about the terror group are in for a rude awakening.

More than half of Palestinians continue to support the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7. Moreover, the terror group remains popular among a large number of Palestinians. Support for Hamas means support for the destruction of Israel through Jihad (holy war).

A poll published on October 28 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that 53% of the Palestinians think that Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 attack was “correct.” A majority of 54% of Palestinians blame Israel for the current suffering of Gazans, while 24% blame the US. Only 14% blame Hamas.

These findings contradict claims by some Western media outlets that a growing number of Palestinians were disillusioned with Hamas because of the death and destruction it has brought on its people as a result of its October 7 attack.

Asked about their perception of Hamas two years after the Gaza war began, 18% of the Palestinians said their support for Hamas was big and it has not changed, while 19% said their support for the terror group increased a lot. Another 17% said their support for Hamas increased a little. By contrast, 16% said they did not support Hamas before the war and that their opposition to the terror group has not changed; 12% said their support decreased a little, and 10% said their support for Hamas has decreased a lot.

“The conclusion from these numbers is that the past two years have led to greater support for Hamas rather than the opposite,” according to the poll.

The poll showed that a vast majority of the Palestinians are still in denial over the crimes committed by Hamas on October 7. Asked if Hamas had committed the atrocities seen in the videos shown by international media displaying atrocities committed by Hamas members against Israeli civilians, 86% said the terror group did not commit such atrocities. Only 10% said Hamas did commit them.

As for the disarmament of Hamas, as stipulated in the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace to end the Gaza war, the poll found that an overwhelming majority of 69% oppose the idea. Only 29% said they support disarming Hamas.

Regarding public satisfaction with the role played by various Palestinian actors during the Gaza war, the poll showed that satisfaction with Hamas’s performance has risen from 57% (in May 2025) to 60%.

A majority of Palestinians, the poll showed, are extremely supportive of Iran, Hezbollah, Qatar and the Houthi militia in Yemen, a terror group that fired dozens of missiles and suicide drones at Israel during the war. The highest satisfaction rate went to the Houthis (74%), followed by Hamas’s main sponsor Qatar (52%), Hezbollah (50%), and Iran (44%).

If elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA) were held today, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal would win 63% of the votes, as opposed to 27% for incumbent PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The 89-year-old Abbas, who is in the 20th year of his four-year term in office, remains as unpopular as ever among his own people, who view him and his PA as incompetent and corrupt.

According to the poll, dissatisfaction with Abbas stands at 75%, while 80% want him to resign.

Asked which political party they support, the largest percentage (35%) said they prefer Hamas, followed by Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction (24%). Nine percent selected third parties, and 32% said they do not support any of them or do not know. Five months ago, 32% said they supported Hamas and 21% said they supported Fatah.

“These results mean that support for Hamas over the past five months has increased by three percentage points,” the poll noted.

Another inconvenient finding: If parliamentary elections were held today, 44% of the Palestinians say they will vote for Hamas, 30% for Fatah, and 10% for third parties. The remaining respondents said they have not yet decided for whom to vote.

The number of Palestinians who believe that Hamas most deserves to represent and lead the Palestinians has risen from 40% five months ago to 41%.

Also unexpected is the ongoing Palestinian support for the “armed struggle” (terrorism) against Israel. The latest poll found that 41% of the Palestinians support the “armed struggle” as opposed to 36% who said they prefer negotiations.

The results of the poll demonstrate that a significant number of Palestinians continue to support the Jihadi group that murdered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and brought death and destruction on the two million residents of the Gaza Strip.

Those who are pushing for reforms and presidential and legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip need to take into consideration that the future Palestinian government or state would be dominated by the same terrorists who brutally tortured and murdered hundreds of Israelis, including Arab citizens of Israel, on October 7, 2023.

The results of the poll also show the challenges facing the implementation of the Trump plan, especially disarming Hamas and deradicalizing Palestinian society. Most Palestinians are openly opposed to disarming Hamas – a situation that will make it effectively impossible for any Arab or foreign party to confiscate the terror group’s weapons by force.

Any Palestinian or Arab leader who sees that most Palestinians oppose the disarmament of Hamas will think twice before he undertakes such a mission: he would not want to act against the wishes of the Arab street — such a move would be regarded as treason.

As for deradicalization, it is clear from the poll that Palestinians are moving in the opposite direction. This is mainly due to continued incitement against Israel in the Palestinian and Arab media, mosques, social media platforms and the rhetoric of Palestinian leaders and officials. Deradicalization requires brave leaders who will stand up and speak out about the need to stop poisoning the hearts and minds of young Palestinians. Many Palestinians are afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled as traitors or collaborators with Israel. We have seen how Palestinians who challenged Hamas were tortured and executed in public squares in the Gaza Strip as soon as the ceasefire went into effect.

Radical change in Palestinian society will come only when Palestinians rise up against destructive leaders who, over the past few decades, have been dragging them from one disaster to another.

Arab states deepened military ties with Israel while denouncing Gaza war, leak reveals

U.S. service members assigned to U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group and U.S. Navy Seal Team 7 conduct airborne operations alongside their counterparts from Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, India, Italy, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Yemen during a jump over the Giza Pyramid Complex during exercise BRIGHT STAR 25 in Giza, Egypt, Sept. 6, 2025. This event was one of many during the exercise in which U.S. forces worked alongside their partner nation armed forces to enhance readiness and build our collective capacity to operate seamlessly while improving interoperability in a joint operations environment. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Grace Nechanicky)

Israeli and Arab military officials have come together for meetings and trainings, facilitated by U.S. Central Command, on regional threats, Iran and underground tunnels.

Even as key Arab states condemned the war in the Gaza Strip, they quietly expanded security cooperation with the Israeli military, leaked U.S. documents reveal. Those military ties were thrown into crisis after Israel’s September airstrike in Qatar, but could now play a key role in overseeing the nascent ceasefire in Gaza.

Inside China’s machinery of repression — and how it crushes dissent around the world – ICIJ

Amid fluttering Chinese and French flags, President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, stepped off their state plane under a rainy Paris sky last May. Arriving for the first leg of a five-day tour to strengthen European ties, China’s first couple was warmly greeted by throngs of Chinese bystanders waving their country’s red flag and groups performing traditional dragon and lion dances to the sound of drums and gongs.

Across town, Jiang Shengda’s phone pinged. The leader of Le Front de la Liberté en Chine, a small group of Chinese activists and artists, the 31-year-old Jiang was preparing to address hundreds of demonstrators at the Place de la République, a celebrated venue for freedom of expression, protest and dissent.

The Beijing-born artist and activist had become accustomed to speaking to large crowds, often joining Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kongers overseas to denounce Xi’s oppression of human rights and civil liberties, in China and abroad. But this day, he faced an agonizing dilemma.

Jiang’s mother was calling — from 5,100 miles away in Beijing.

Jiang thought he knew why: Chinese police were forcing her to place the calls, he told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in a recent interview.

He didn’t pick up.

“She was definitely going to convey the [authorities’] message that I shouldn’t be involved in any public activities during Xi Jinping’s visit,” Jiang told ICIJ, his face hidden behind dark sunglasses and framed by long hair and a scruffy goatee. “And then my thought was: ‘I think it’s something that I have to do.’ ”

Jiang is one of hundreds of Chinese people living overseas that Chinese authorities have targeted directly, through hacking and surveillance — and indirectly, through interrogation of relatives, friends and even former teachers.

The pressure and control applied to the young activist is part of a sophisticated, global campaign engineered by the Chinese government to coerce and intimidate members of its diaspora in what analysts call “transnational repression.”

ICIJ and its media partners interviewed 105 people in 23 countries who, like Jiang, have been targeted by Chinese authorities in recent years for criticizing the government’s policies in public and in private.

These individuals include Chinese and Hong Kong political dissidents as well as members of oppressed Uyghur and Tibetan minorities. They have been singled out for advocating for the rights of China’s ethnic minorities and addressing other topics considered taboo by the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, including Taiwanese and Hong Kong independence and the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

The interviews were part of China Targets, a cross-border investigation led by ICIJ that sheds new light on the vast scale of China’s global repression campaign — and the feckless response of authorities in many democratic nations where those who have been targeted now seek refuge.

The probe shows how the failure to contain Chinese authoritarianism has enabled it to reach into intergovernmental institutions such as the United Nations and Interpol, the international police organization.

“The Communist Party’s essence hasn’t changed,” said Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat from Canada and expert on China’s foreign policy. “What has changed is its capabilities. They can do more, so they do more.”

Meanwhile, Kovrig said, many democratic countries’ intelligence and law enforcement agencies lack adequate expertise to deal with cases involving the CCP’s repression and pressure tactics inside their borders. “This is a relatively new monster, and they don’t know how to fight it,” said Kovrig, who himself was detained in China from 2018 to 2021 in apparent retaliation for Canadian authorities’ arrest of a top executive of Huawei, the Chinese tech giant.

China rejects allegations of transnational repression as “groundless” and “fabricated by a handful of countries and organizations to slander China,” according to Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Liu told ICIJ in a statement that “there is no such thing as ‘reaching beyond borders’ to target so-called dissidents and overseas Chinese.”

As part of the investigation, ICIJ coordinated reporters across five continents to interview targets and analyze their cases. ICIJ also reviewed a 2004 Chinese police textbook and confidential guidelines for domestic security officers dating to 2013. The reporters then compared the tactics described in the internal documents with the experiences of the 105 targets, as well as with secretly recorded police interrogations, and phone calls and text messages between 11 security officers in China and nine targets overseas. The comparison shows the tactics recently deployed against the subjects mirrored the guidelines on how to control individuals labeled as domestic security threats.

Half of the targets interviewed by ICIJ and its media partners said the harassment extended to family members back home, who suffered intimidation and were interrogated by police or state security officials one or more times. Several victims told ICIJ that their family members in China or Hong Kong were harassed by police shortly after they had participated in protests or public events overseas. Sixty said they believed they had been followed or were targets of surveillance or spying by Chinese officials or their proxies; 27 said they were victims of an online smear campaign, and 19 said they had received suspicious messages or experienced hacking attempts, including by state actors. Some said their bank accounts in China and Hong Kong had been frozen. Officers from both the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security — two of the Chinese agencies with intelligence capacity — were responsible for intimidating some of the targets and their families, the testimonies show. Twenty-two people said they received physical threats or had been assaulted by civilian CCP supporters.

Most of those interviewed by ICIJ and its partners said they had not reported state-sponsored threats to the authorities in their adopted countries, explaining that they feared retaliation from China or didn’t have faith in authorities’ ability to help. Of those who had filed a report, several said police did not follow up on their case or told them that they couldn’t do anything because there was no evidence of a crime.

“Only when they see my dead body will they act,” said Nuria Zyden, a Dublin-based Uyghur, referring to the police’s response after she reported being followed by three Chinese men.

The China Targets investigation also draws on extradition records; confidential Interpol files; private communication between United Nations Human Rights Council officers and the Chinese delegation; and court filings, intelligence reports and government records from 34 countries.

Under Xi’s regime, the investigation found, the U.N. compound in Geneva has become a hostile environment where dissidents and minorities seeking to protest Beijing’s policies face harassment and intimidation from nongovernmental organizations aligned with the Chinese government. Reporters found that Chinese authorities also used Interpol to pursue not just criminals but also dissidents, businesspeople and Uyghur rights advocates, in apparent violation of the organization’s rules.

Taken together, the evidence reveals a coordinated and systematic effort by the Chinese government to neutralize dissent in all its forms by individuals the world over.
Repression playbook

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese military killed at least 10,000 peaceful protesters, dozens of activists fled overseas, setting up human rights organizations in New York, Paris and other cities.

“Once dissidents were out of China, they were largely out of reach; they could continue their activities,” said Katja Drinhausen, who heads the Chinese Politics & Society research program at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. “They built networks for action abroad.”

In response, she said, Chinese authorities decided that “they wanted those organizations quiet and gone.”

Xi is committed to deepening Communist Party control over China and the diaspora. No opposition to this goal, however small or weak, is tolerated.

— Emile Dirks, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab

They built a global network of cross-border repression, codifying methods to control and repress members of the diaspora in local domestic security guidelines, police textbooks and other internal documents intended for security officers in China and overseas. Some were reviewed by ICIJ.

Among the internal documents is a printed police academy textbook that includes tips on “overseas research.”

The internal entry-level textbook on “Domestic Security,” edited in 2004 by the political unit of Guangdong province’s Public Security Bureau, described overseas research as different from “foreign intelligence work” and as something that must be “long term,” “carefully deployed” and “targeted.” Overseas research is part of a “covert struggle,” and its goal, the book said, is to identify people and organizations outside China that plot, direct or finance activities that endanger the country’s socio-political stability and national security and report them to the CCP’s highest ranks.

Since Xi took power in 2012, repression against the perceived enemies of the party-state, including those abroad, has intensified, experts said. In internal communiqués, Xi himself has urged security officials to remain vigilant against “Western anti-China forces,” including dissidents.

“Xi is committed to deepening Communist Party control over China and the diaspora,” said Emile Dirks, who researches authoritarianism at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. “No opposition to this goal, however small or weak, is tolerated.”

An 84-slide presentation leaked from the public security bureau of Tekes County, Xinjiang, and dated 2013, instructs domestic security officers to use covert methods to detect and stop any activity that could put the party’s rule at risk.

The presentation, shared with ICIJ by Adrian Zenz, director of China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, likened domestic security to “a sharp weapon in the struggle against hostile forces and elements both within and outside the country.” It also urged a coordinated approach among multiple government agencies.

A chart in the presentation shows how secret police and investigators with the domestic security protection unit of the Ministry of Public Security oversaw covert operations. Grassroots police stations, where citizens can report fraud and other common crimes, as well as “social forces” — neighbors, social groups, nongovernment organizations and other civilian entities — helped “suppress and curb” politically sensitive activities.

Several pages described 18 “strategies and methods for the education, rehabilitation and control” of “key individuals” who are deemed a threat to national security and political stability.

ICIJ compared the 2013 guidelines with the testimony of the 105 victims and found that Chinese authorities have used similar methods to stifle dissent overseas.

One method in the government document was called “emotional influence of kinship,” that is, putting pressure on suspects’ family members to stop their activism. The guidelines said that parents and children can influence each other, and wives can discourage husbands from engaging in risky activities. “Affectionate work done well, on the one hand, can touch the key person.” On the other hand, “it can also prevent” the key person’s “loved ones from being pulled over,” the document said. It “kills two birds with one stone.”

Another method was called “pulling the ladder out of the house” — banning activists from returning from overseas.

During a secretly recorded interrogation obtained by ICIJ, an officer told the parent of a person living in the U.S. that if their child continued to write about politically sensitive topics, they would be forbidden from entering China again or would never be allowed to leave if they decided to return. (ICIJ is not revealing details of the incident to avoid putting the victim and their relative in danger.)

Other tactics included “cutting off oxygen” — trying to reduce the income of targets and controlling their bank accounts; “the creation of mutual suspicion and mistrust between accomplices;” internet monitoring and “making it impossible for them to communicate with the outside world”; and digging up targets’ “immoral behavior.” “No one is a saint and no one is immune to mistakes,” one guideline reads.

According to Drinhausen, these guidelines spell out a strategy that China continues to use on a large scale. “The principle and general playbook hasn’t changed, but they are operating at a very different level today,” she said. “The document also shows that the surveillance state is deeply local and personal.”
A dossier and unwanted visits

The son of a state security officer and grandson of a high-ranking government official dispatched to Inner Mongolia, Jiang had attended elite Beijing schools along with other children of the rich and powerful. He recalls a lot of people seeking favors from his powerful father, sending mooncakes and expensive crabs to the family home.

At age 18, Jiang briefly joined the China Democracy Party, a U.S.-based political group advocating constitutional democracy in China. The foray into activism landed him in serious trouble: He was arrested, charged with inciting subversion of state power and hauled off by the police.

Jiang was shocked to discover the police had compiled a thick dossier on him, including private emails and comments by a primary-school teacher. He was detained for three nights and had his passport revoked for about a year; his father was forced from his foreign intelligence post and went to work for a state-owned company, Jiang said.

In 2018, Jiang moved to France, a country he admired for its democratic traditions, its culture of social protest and dissent dating to the French Revolution and its long history as a haven for activists seeking refuge from political turmoil.

Around the time he arrived in Paris, members of the local Hong Kong community were demonstrating against new security laws back home. Inspired, Jiang later became the leader of Le Front de la Liberté en Chine and began to criticize China’s policies in his art, using the name Chiang Seeta.

He quickly drew the attention of Chinese authorities by building a symbolic wall on the sidewalk in front of the Chinese Embassy in Paris. Later, as part of a public performance art piece Jiang created, an actor wore Chinese imperial robes and Xi face masks to mock his “enthronement” ahead of the CCP’s 20th National Congress.

As his activism became bolder, hackers attacked his art website dozens of times while Google warned him that “government-backed intruders” were trying to steal his passwords.

Days before Xi’s 2024 trip to Paris, Jiang said, his parents called to tell him that plainclothed secret police had been visiting them for months, showing up at all hours or forcing them to meet at unofficial locations such as teahouses and restaurants’ private rooms. They hadn’t wanted to worry him, they said, but added that their continued silence was no longer an option.

On that May afternoon at the Place de la République, Jiang knew that ignoring the fresh warnings delivered by undercover operatives to his parents could risk their safety.

And yet, with his phone aglow from frantic calls placed late in the Beijing night, Jiang took the microphone to address the crowd of Tibetan and Hong Kong protesters. “They [the Chinese police] have demanded that we keep quiet during Xi Jinping’s visit to France. … Such threats are part of transnational repression … that is just an extension of [China’s] tyranny,” he said. “That’s why communication between different communities is so valuable in the face of China’s long-standing policy of [division].”

Shortly after his speech, Jiang called his parents. He learned that while he was about to get on stage, officers had called his parents’ home demanding the father meet them in the middle of the night. They warned: “Your kid used to do certain things overseas that are against Chinese laws. We could turn a blind eye to it. But this time the big leader comes [to France]. If he does something embarrassing for the big leader” during Xi’s visit, “it’d be difficult for us to handle.”

Jiang told ICIJ that Chinese authorities used the same tactics with the families of other group members. As a result, some have quit their activism and left the group, he said.

“Even if we live in a free country, we are still afraid to speak up and suffer harassment from the party,” Jiang told ICIJ.
Wanted person

Since Xi’s rise to power in 2012, advocates, journalists and academics have documented thousands of transnational repression cases at the hand of Chinese authorities, an ICIJ review of reports by human rights organizations, media outlets and other research shows.

Technology to “manage public opinion,” infiltrate dissidents’ computers and steal private information from users of the X social media platform has also enabled authorities to quickly target a larger number of people and to automate transnational repression.

The Chinese government’s repression campaign also relies on private security firms, professional hackers, staff of Chinese nongovernmental organizations with access to U.N. proceedings, retired or corrupt law enforcement officials in foreign countries and members of China’s diaspora with links to the CCP-linked United Front Work Department. Authorities have also turned victims into perpetrators, forcing or luring dissidents and members of ethnic minorities to spy on their peers overseas, court records show.

Meanwhile, host nations struggle to protect government targets against attacks and intimidation, ICIJ found.

With a few exceptions, targets of China’s repression told ICIJ that law enforcement officers where they live frequently dismiss their complaints of surveillance and stalking. Diplomatic responses remain timid, allowing China to become more aggressive, activists said. In Nepal, Thailand and other countries dependent on Chinese economic power, local law enforcement has helped Chinese authorities prevent protests and in some cases even locate and arrest dissidents, ICIJ found.

Last year, Carmen Lau, a 30-year-old Hong Konger in exile, stayed up late in her apartment near London to listen as Hong Kong police held a Christmas Eve press conference to announce restrictions on democracy activists in exile.

She heard her name.

A government official announced arrest warrants against six pro-democracy activists; Lau, a former Hong Kong district council member and democracy and human rights advocate, was one of them. Authorities announced they had charged her with “colluding with foreign forces” and “inciting secession,” and placed a bounty worth about $130,000 for her capture.

“It changes my daily life a lot,” Lau said. “Mentally I’m still processing and still trying to adjust my lifestyle or my social life.”

Lau is one of hundreds of Hong Kongers who participated in the pro-democracy movement that was brutally repressed by the city’s authorities and culminated in 2020 with a new security law that heavily curtails human rights and civil liberties. She was charged in 2021 with inciting voters to cast a blank vote as a means of protesting an election activists viewed as rigged.

Lau was among thousands who have fled to the U.K., the U.S. and other countries; she is one of 19 who are currently on Hong Kong’s bounty list.

Hong Kong authorities froze her bank account — along with those of 126,000 residents who left the city. In February, two days after Lau participated in a protest against a new Chinese Embassy in London, Hong Kong national security police took in her aunt and uncle for questioning. The officers showed up at their door at 7 a.m. and kept them at a station for about five hours, according to local media. Nine days later, police took in another aunt “to assist with their investigation,” Hong Kong media reported.

Lau told ICIJ that she no longer has any contact with her family back home, but she is still worried for them — and for her personal safety. “It was [a] complicated feeling … because I know that what I’m doing is right,” she said. “But then, because of my decision or my determination, I put my relatives and friends [in] danger.”

While Lau was away on a trip in March, five of her neighbors in a town near London received a letter from an anonymous sender in Hong Kong encouraging them to hand her over to the Chinese Embassy and collect the bounty. The letter included a recent photo of Lau labeling her a “Wanted Person.”

In a statement to ICIJ, a spokesperson for Hong Kong’s Security Bureau said the government will “take every measure” to pursue those suspected of having violated Hong Kong national security laws who have fled overseas, “including cutting off their funding sources, so as to prevent and suppress them from continuing to engage in acts and activities endangering national security.”

The spokesperson noted, however, that the government does not send anonymous letters and cautioned “to verify the authenticity of such letter(s).”

Today, Lau wears a mask in public, minimizes her social circle and often finds herself looking over her shoulder. She has received rape and death threats from anonymous accounts on X and suspects that two men followed her and took photos while she was at a Lunar New Year event in London.

She said U.K. authorities have been little help, despite Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s statement last year that the British government “will not tolerate any attempts by foreign governments to coerce, intimidate, harass, or harm their critics overseas, especially in the UK.”

After Hong Kong authorities issued the bounty, an officer from London metropolitan police’s anti-terrorism unit advised Lau not to participate in protests and minimize online activity, she said. Police in her town suggested that she install a surveillance camera outside her apartment and get a personal alarm. Officers told her to call 999, the emergency number, if she suspected trouble but offered no additional protection, she said. (The police declined to comment on Lau’s case.) She has talked about the state-sponsored threats against Hong Kongers in official meetings with Lammy and other high-ranking officials but believes those meetings are mostly “lip service and a photo op,” she said.

Lau said the British government should formally define transnational repression, set up a monitoring or reporting mechanism and work more closely with other democracies to find patterns used to target their people abroad.

For now, she said, “I don’t feel safe at all.”
‘Semi-sleeping’

China analysts and former intelligence officers and diplomats interviewed by ICIJ said that democratic nations have been slow to recognize the Chinese government’s transnational repression strategy — leading to long-lasting consequences.

Jonas Parello-Plesner, a former senior adviser on China for Denmark’s Foreign Ministry who was approached by a Chinese agent to become a spy in 2011, said the “awakening” to the problem started with the countries with the largest Chinese communities, including the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

“There is a growing awareness in some quarters about this issue,” Parello-Plesner said. “But I don’t think there’s a completely concerted action that is capable of dealing with this.”

A big shift in public understanding came in 2022, when Safeguard Defenders, a rights group, published a widely read report revealing that Chinese business associations and other civilian community service groups in dozens of cities around the world were acting as secret surveillance hubs.

Many countries, as well as the European Union, showed a new awareness of the implications of China’s control of its diaspora.

Since then, the European Parliament has called for a harmonized response of EU member states to transnational repression by “illiberal regimes,” including China. Switzerland investigated China’s oppression of Tibetans and Uyghurs living there and concluded that transnational repression is a threat to democracy, much like terrorism, because it erodes freedom of action and expression. And in the U.K., a government committee recently heard experts and victims as part of an inquiry into the issue.

But according to Parello-Plesner, democratic nations still lack the understanding and tools to deal with China’s influence and interference.

“I think we’re still semi-sleeping,” he said.

‘Do not think about coming home’

Nuria Zyden keeps a photo of her mother on her desk. She doesn’t expect to see her again.

Now 43 and living in Dublin, Zyden grew up amid peach and apricot trees in Kashgar, in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, the center of the Muslim-majority Uyghur community that has suffered institutionalized discrimination and marginalization for generations. She remembers celebrating Eid with her mother, along with 26 cousins at her grandmother’s place in the countryside, dyeing eggs and butchering a sheep for the feast.

Zyden moved to Ireland 15 years ago to escape anti-Uyghur sentiment in China and pursue a career working for a multinational corporation. In 2014, the Chinese government imposed restrictions in Xinjiang after a deadly blast at a railway station that Xi called a “terrorist attack.”

As Zyden became more active in international Uyghur rights groups, her family became increasingly worried and finally asked her to cut ties.

Her mother had told her: “Do not think about coming home.”

Since then, advocates and researchers have asserted that the Chinese government has perpetrated human rights violations including mass imprisonment of more than 1 million Uyghurs, forced labor and other abuses under the pretext of combating terrorism and religious extremism. A 2022 U.N. report concluded that documented abuses “may constitute crimes against humanity.”

And while the Chinese government has relentlessly targeted pro-democracy Chinese people everywhere, it has displayed a particular zeal for Uyghur activists, whom it accuses of fostering a separatist movement and, in some cases, acts of terrorism, internal government documents show.

In October, Zyden traveled to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 176 delegates were gathering for the general assembly of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a Uyghur rights organization. Her trip took an unexpected turn.

During her layover in Frankfurt, Germany, she was on a minivan transporting passengers to the airport gate when she noticed two Chinese men who “looked like they were on a mission.” Later at her hotel in Sarajevo, she heard shouting and turned to see them again — in an argument with Adiljan Abdukerim, a conference organizer who had confronted the men in Chinese for filming attendees with their phones.

“You guys are very cocky here,” one of them barked at Abdukerim, the organizer told ICIJ. “We know how to deal with you.”

Abdukerim shot back: “Do you think this is China?”

Hotel security intervened and the men, who remain unidentified, left.

The organizers also received a video featuring masked men purporting to be Islamic terrorists threatening WUC leaders and anonymous emails featuring photos of guns and of the hotel where they were gathering. Bosnia’s federal police told ICIJ that it’s investigating the threats.

After returning to Ireland, Zyden received a surprise phone call. After 10 years of silence, her mother was on the line.

Using a WeChat number that her mother said was provided by a local foreign affairs officer in Kashgar, the mother said she had heard Zyden had been at the WUC event in Sarajevo.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

”Why don’t you think about our safety?” chimed in a relative sitting beside her mother.

Zyden insisted she had done nothing wrong and demanded to talk to the officials who she believed had forced the call.

In January, Zyden received a call from a Kashgar officer. “What do you want from me?” she asked. “What are you expecting?” Authorities had found out about her activism, he told her, and interrogated her mother, who had then fallen ill. Chinese security officers keep a database of individuals linked to the WUC, as well as their relatives, according to an analysis of government documents by Zenz, the expert on Xinjiang policy.

“Relax,” Zyden recalls the officer saying. “He was [acting as] the one gently coming to sort out the problem, as though he wanted to protect my family, and now my family is kind of under his protection.” She got “very upset.”

Zyden said she reported everything to Irish police — including the officer’s call and her encounter with the two men who she suspected had followed her all the way to Bosnia. “I wrote down everything,” she told ICIJ.

Representatives from the Irish police, An Garda Síochána, told ICIJ partner the Irish Times that they are investigating Zyden’s complaint.

“I’m still struggling,” Zyden said. Part of her says “leave everything,” she said, “but another side says ‘If you are being quiet, they will take more. You have to speak out. You have to fight back.’ ”
‘We could find you anytime’

Until recently, many activists and victims interviewed by ICIJ looked up to the U.S. as the most active country fighting transnational repression. The Federal Bureau of Investigation encourages anyone with information about the subject to call its hotline. Its special agents have helped indict Chinese officers working for China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security. But even in the U.S., government agencies struggle to define transnational repression and “are unable to quantify the full extent of the issue,” according to a 2023 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Law enforcement officers in democratic nations say their ability to protect victims is limited because China uses proxies and indirect methods to make it difficult to link the harassment to a state actor.

At a parliamentary hearing last year, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett acknowledged that foreign interference — which includes transnational repression — is “one of the most complex” crimes they investigate. The perpetrators, she said, often use “extremely good trade craft” and “know how to operate in a way that does either remove them from … direct investigation, or evade some of our investigative tactics.”

Dutch prosecutors lamented similar challenges when investigating 24 reports of harassment, intimidation and other threatening acts allegedly carried out by Chinese government officers or proxies against victims living in the Netherlands. In a 2020 report, the prosecutors concluded that the alleged offenders were in China, where Dutch authorities have no jurisdiction, making it impossible for them to bring charges.

After the harrowing phone calls from his father during Xi’s Paris visit last year, Jiang, the artist and activist, said the threats to his family abruptly ended. Life returned to normal.

But in March, Jiang checked one of the four phones he uses to securely communicate with people in China and noticed a message.

It was from his father. He returned the call and learned that security officers, including one who had talked to his parents before, had wanted to meet with his father.

The officers bought Jiang’s father a drink at a cafe in Beijing and in their usual polite tone made clear that his son should stop collaborating with a well-known activist based in Italy known as “Teacher Li,” who had amassed 1.9 million followers on X since he started posting about demonstrations and discontent from within China early in the COVID-19 pandemic. (Jiang is filming a documentary about Li and contributing to the activist’s project to expose exploitative labor practices in China.)

The officers told Jiang’s father that his son should not be “implicated” with Li because he is a “key individual,” the government lingo for targets deemed to be potential threats to society.

They also had a message for Jiang: “If necessary they will call you or meet you where you are,” his father said.

Jiang got the message: “I’d interpret that to mean that, ‘If we wanted to find you, we could find you anytime we wanted to.’”