BoneAlpha

🇲🇱#Mali:#Warning:⚠️There has been a surge of kidnappings targeting foreigners along major roads and in foreign compounds in Mali recently, and more such incidents are expected. Small splinter groups of JNIM are primarily acting to demand ransoms. Some cases have already taken place. All foreigners, especially Chinese nationals, please stay vigilant and ensure your safety.

🇳🇬 This is bad news. Security forces might be far out of reach.

Tactically speaking, if danger strikes, the troops will be too far from their weapons.

@secmxx It seems that area is an illegal gold-mining zone.

Days after mali military bombed harouba mining camp in north mali, new arrivals of young boys from maiduguri Nigeria are arriving to work at this sites.....

سياسي أزوادي يلوّح باستهداف المدن ردا على غارات مالي وروسيا لوّح السياسي الأزوادي أتاي أغ محمد بشن هجمات مماثلة على المدن التي تستخدمها القوات المالية و"الفيلق الأفريقي" الروسي قواعد خلفية، إذا استمرت ضربات المسيّرات على التجمعات المدنية في إقليم كيدال. وقال أغ محمد إن قوات أزواد حصرت عملياتها الجوية حتى الآن في الأهداف العسكرية، لكن استهداف النازحين والمنقبين والمهاجرين والمراكز الصحية قد يدفعها إلى اعتماد "معاملة بالمثل دون تمييز". ويأتي التهديد بعد انتقال القوات المالية والروسية، إثر خسائرها في أنفيف وتابريشات، إلى تكثيف الغارات على بلدات أزوادية قرب الحدود الجزائرية. ووثق تحقيق مفتوح المصادر استخدام مسيّرات من طراز "شاهد-136" في ضرب إنفارك وتالهنداك خلال يوليو. *الصورة لعمال جرحى في غارة على سوق حسب المصدر.

West Africa's high-intensity summer: what actually happened in July -AITD~ Since April, security conditions across the Sahel-to-Gulf-of-Guinea corridor haven't really let up, and July continued that pattern rather than breaking it. Three fronts moved in parallel this month: Mali's north, Nigeria's northeast and northwest, and western Niger. None of these are new stories exactly, but each hit a notable inflection point in July. MALI: THE ANÉFIS SIEGE On July 4, the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and JNIM launched a coordinated, multi-front offensive: Gao, Aguelhok and Anéfis in the north, several towns in central Mali, and a prison near Bamako, all struck the same day. The Malian army and its Russian Africa Corps partners say they held Gao and Aguelhok. Anéfis was the heaviest fight — insurgents brought at least one BTR-80 armored vehicle, artillery and drones, and took outlying positions around the town. What followed was a six-day siege. On July 5, a relief convoy heading north from Gao came under attack, and a Mi-24 helicopter went down near Tabrichat, southwest of Anéfis. The army claims 54 airstrikes over July 6-8 killed more than 300 fighters, a figure that comes only from the military itself and hasn't been corroborated independently. Russian-aligned outlets put the insurgent force at 5,000 fighters and over a thousand vehicles — numbers that look inflated and shouldn't be repeated as fact. On July 10, the army announced it had retaken Anéfis. Two days later, army chief of staff General Jean Elysée Dao gave the actual cost of that operation on state television: roughly 30 soldiers killed, 60 wounded. That's a different number from the "300 killed" claim above — one is a body count the army says it inflicted on the enemy, the other is the army admitting its own losses in retaking the town. Analysts, including ACLED's Héni Nsaibia, called it one of the longest sustained conventional engagements in Mali since the 2012 rebellion, and read it as a test of whether the JNIM-FLA alliance can follow up on capturing Kidal back in April. It wasn't over there. On July 18-19, a convoy withdrawing from Anéfis toward Gao was ambushed near Tabankort. Local officials described casualties as widespread; FLA released footage claiming to show dozens of captured Malian soldiers. So the actual sequence is siege, recapture, and then a second mauling on the way out — not the clean resolution the July 10 announcement implied. NIGERIA: THREE DIFFERENT FIGHTS UNDER ONE FLAG In the northeast, ISWAP has been probing harder since the bulk of US forces left Nigeria on July 3. On July 1 it hit a humanitarian convoy with a remote-detonated IED and separately raided a community in Biu. On July 10, fighters tried to push into the edges of Maiduguri itself, through Muna Garage, Shuwari and Ajilari Cross, before being repelled in the early hours. A similar push into Kukawa on July 11 ended with the army claiming a major kill count and, notably, alleging "external involvement" — a claim that's entirely the military's own and unverified. Mid-month, an ISWAP raid on a forward base at Logomani killed one soldier and burned a police post, a health center and two classrooms. On July 23 the military struck back, hitting a suspected ISWAP hideout near Lake Chad after intelligence reported around fifty motorcycles massing there. On July 31, a mass-kidnapping attempt on the Buratai-Kamuya road was foiled after CCTV picked up suspicious movement in time. The northwest is a messier problem: banditry that's increasingly hard to separate from jihadist networks. Sokoto state has just had its worst year of violence on record, with the forests along the Sokoto-Zamfara corridor functioning as a highway for fighters and stolen livestock alike. "Lakurawa" is really a catch-all label for Sahel-linked groups operating there, and the line between bandit and ideologue keeps blurring. There are reports JNIM lent roughly a hundred fighters to Lakurawa-aligned groups pushing toward Kwara state earlier this year. That Kwara spillover is worth watching on its own. On July 30, security forces freed nine kidnap victims and killed three gunmen in Kwara's Ekiti local government area — victims who had been taken from the Eju community and were being moved north toward Niger state when the convoy was intercepted. It's a small incident, but it traces a corridor that didn't used to carry this kind of traffic. NIGER: A CONTEST AND A COALITION Western Niger remains the most contested ground in the region. On July 17, a Nigerien army unit was ambushed near Doungourou village, on the Bankilaré-Téra axis. The defense ministry's own count, released two days later, was 16 soldiers killed and 23 wounded; independent reporting suggests the real toll was higher, though no verified figure exists. Regional counterterrorism data shows attacks and casualties in Niger have roughly tripled year over year, with ISSP and ISGS the most active groups and Tillabéri, Tahoua and Dosso bearing the brunt. JNIM and ISSP are effectively competing for the same ground here. Less covered, and arguably more interesting, is what's happening on the other side of the country. A cluster of politico-military movements opposed to the 2023 coup — the Patriotic Liberation Front (FPL), the Patriotic Justice Front (FPJ) and the Patriotic Movement for Liberty and Justice (MPLJ) — have been consolidating. On June 28, the latter two signed a coalition agreement at Djado. On July 25, just ahead of the third anniversary of the coup, FPL fighters gathered roughly a hundred strong with eighteen pickup trucks at Ahahi, near the Libya-Chad-Niger tripoint, and its leader, recently released after being held by forces loyal to Haftar in Libya, publicly vowed to continue the fight. These groups aren't jihadists. They want Mohamed Bazoum reinstated and the junta gone. But MPLJ in particular has settled on a specific tactic: repeatedly striking the oil pipeline running from the Agadem fields to Benin, the junta's main source of hard currency, with attacks recorded in December and February. It's a genuinely different kind of threat from the jihadist violence elsewhere in the region — targeted and political, aimed at the government's finances rather than at territory or civilians. Put together, July didn't produce a single new crisis so much as confirm that three separate conflicts are all running hot at once: a conventional-style war in northern Mali, a hybrid jihadist-criminal complex spanning northern Nigeria, and a two-front struggle in Niger between jihadists and coup opponents. And there's growing evidence that violence in one corridor is starting to bleed into the next.

@OSINTCap @secmxx yeah ~

@secmxx some look like Polish variant of the AK.

New weapons delivery posted by a member of kachalla gwaska group in bagega axis..... the group had a very successful raid last week... The weapons are likely sourced through libya via Niger republic, arrested some men selling similar weapons to Boko haram sadiku in borgu axis Niger state few months ago..

Travel advisory.... A bandits horde coming out of sangeko gap in Zamfara state has reached kakihum in Niger state, the bandits horde will react the kontagora - Rijau highway in above 1hr... Avoid the highway and farmers in that axis should rest at home for the day....

SAD NEWS: Last night, bandits reportedly attacked Kaura Namoda town in Zamfara State, targeting the residences of the Rector of Kaura Namoda Polytechnic, Alhaji Azariya, and Sanusi Basa Na-Kazalle. Fortunately, they were unable to abduct anyone from those homes. However, local sources say the attackers kidnapped two residents and fatally shot one of the Rector's security guards before fleeing. The latest attack shows the continuing security challenges facing communities across Nigeria's North-West. How many more innocent lives must be lost before decisive action is taken to stop these recurring attacks?

🇳🇪#Niger FPL leader Mahamoud Sallah — freed by Haftar's forces just 33 days ago — has announced "general mobilization" and a major military operation against the Tiani junta. Niger's FPL leader spent months in a Libyan prison. Haftar just traded him for a rival commander. He's now announced a "major offensive" to restore deposed President Bazoum. The last time FPL made threats, China suspended all activity at Agadem oilfield. Watch this space. 👀

NEW 🇲🇱 🚨 SIKASSO SOUS HAUTE SURVEILLANCE ! Plusieurs convois de matériels militaires viennent d’entrer dans la ville. ⚔️👀 #Mali #Sikasso 🇲🇱

🇲🇱 Le ministre malien des Affaires étrangères et de la Coopération internationale, Son Excellence @AbdoulayeDiop8, a réagi aux informations évoquant une possible intervention américaine au Mali, en marge du lancement de BAMEX. « Nous avons constaté que de nombreux médias ont relayé cette information. À ce jour, nous ne disposons d’aucune confirmation, ni d’aucune déclaration officielle des États-Unis ou de responsables américains à ce sujet. Nous ignorons donc quelle sera la posture du gouvernement américain. Le Mali compte avant tout sur lui-même. Le Mali compte sur son intelligence, sur ses ressources, sur ses Forces de défense et de sécurité, ainsi que sur ses propres moyens. La moindre des choses que l’on puisse attendre d’un partenaire est de venir demander au Mali de quoi il a réellement besoin. » @AzizMaigaNMP

🇲🇱#Mali：The government forces still have a huge advantage in the air.

Boko haram terrorist has put out a obituary of a dead raid commander and videographer Abu salim al-barnawi... He was smoked last week by the Nigerian army when the terrorist group attacked a Nigerian military camp... He was the camera man....he previously lead raids into Cameroon 🇨🇲 b4 joining the media wing of the terrorist group......

🔁!

#Niger : le gouvernement a adopté ce 16 juillet un projet de décret autorisant la création d'un #aérodrome sur le site aurifère de #Tchibarakaten (région d'Agadez). Il doit faciliter les transports, les interventions d'urgence et soutenir le développement des activités #minières.

@Big_marvis I don’t know what your motives are or why you’d lie about this. This image depicts neither Nigeria nor Mali — the incident took place in South Africa.

Nigeria Military unalive more than 100 Bandits/Terrorists in a single operation. The order of the Minister of Defence is yielding positive returns. The order to unalive any terrorists at sight, no arrest, don't wait for order. Once you sight them, bring them down.

The Nigerian Air Force struck a terrorist enclave at Yanagari in the Gezuwa general area of Borno State on July 10, 2026.

@DanKatsina50 OMG~

This is the Police Outpost serving Garunguɗinya in Babura Local Government Area. This old mud-built, dilapidated structure serves a town of about 4,000 people and roughly nine surrounding villages. Suspects arrested for crimes such as banditry, kidnapping and armed robbery are first brought here before being transferred elsewhere. Babura is also the hometown and local government area of former Jigawa State Governor and immediate past Minister of Defence, Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar. Yet, while communities are left with police outposts in this condition, the North West Development Commission (NWDC) is reportedly set to spend over ₦943 million on board allowances. If that is where the priorities lie before meaningful development reaches the people, then the Commission is failing the very region it was created to serve. How do you justify nearly a billion naira for board allowances while security personnel are working from crumbling mud buildings and ordinary citizens are expected to feel protected?

lol~

🙏This is a recurring tragedy. The ISWAP crisis has become a protracted problem. Having withdrawn their forces, the United States claims victory everywhere, yet it is the people of Nigeria who are left bearing the brunt and facing retaliatory attacks from terrorist groups.