Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM)
OVERVIEW
Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is a terrorist group based in Mali and active across much of West Africa, including parts of Burkina Faso and Niger. It formed in March 2017, when four Mali-based extremist groups—Ansar al-Din, al-Murabitun, the Macina Liberation Front (MLF), and the Sahara Emirate subgroup of al-Qa‘ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)—announced that they had merged, formalizing cooperation among them. The leader of JNIM, Iyad ag Ghali, pledged the group’s allegiance to the amir of AQIM, to the amir of al-Qa‘ida, and to the leader of the Taliban.