Reconciliation With The State, Not Rebellion Against It, Is The Best Path For Mali’s Tuaregs

If the Tuareg end their rebellion, cut off their foreign patrons, and ally with the state against al-Qaeda-aligned JNIM, then elements of the Algiers Accord could be restored, which provided them with the widest autonomy that could realistically be granted under the regional circumstances.

Mali’s terrorist-designated Tuareg rebels from the “Azawad Liberation Front” (FLA per its French acronym) allied with “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM) Islamic terrorists to carry out an unprecedented series of nationwide attacks over the weekend. Both groups earlier received drone training from Ukraine. They’re also considered to be US and French proxies, while Algeria is suspected of providing logistical support to the FLA. These facts transformed a local conflict into an international one.

The trigger for this latest Tuareg rebellion was the state’s withdrawal in January 2024 from the 2015 Algiers Accord on the grounds of alleged Algerian-backed Tuareg violations. From the state’s perspective, its granting of administrative, fiscal, and local security (police) autonomy to the country’s regions risked being exploited by adversarial foreign forces to Balkanize Mali, while the Tuaregs believed that the state’s sluggish implementation of its terms exposed its insincere commitment to them.

The military asymmetry between the Tuaregs and the state, which is now backed by Russia’s Africa Corps and previously Wagner, contextualizes their decision to rely on Algeria for logistical support, Ukraine for drone training, the US and French for other aid, and JNIM for foot soldiers. Their calculation was apparently that they could coerce more concessions from the state such as broad Bosnian-like federal autonomy or even outright independence.

That was a miscalculation for three reasons. First, Algeria only wants implementation of the agreement that it brokered in order to avert regional Tuareg unrest, not de facto independence for them that risks emboldening its own such minority to take up arms in pursuit of the same too. It might therefore take military action to prevent this scenario just like Turkiye took such action in Syria vis-à-vis the Kurds. The comparison between the Tuareg and the Syrian Kurds directly leads to the second point.

The Kurdish precedent suggests that the US won’t allow the Tuareg to achieve their separatist or even broad autonomy goals. The US’ ties with regional state-level stakeholders ultimately take precedence. The Tuareg might therefore be sold out just like the Syrian Kurds were earlier this year as explained here. In the political fantasy that they aren’t, and Algeria doesn’t quash their broad autonomy or outright separatist project, there’s no guarantee that they’d survive their JNIM “allies” long enough to enjoy it.

If ISIS is anything to go by, then this al-Qaeda-aligned group will massacre minorities too, though possibly letting the Tuareg live long enough to bestow a veneer of legitimacy upon their temporarily shared anti-state cause. The Kurds fought ISIS so they were slaughtered right away, unlike the Tuareg, which are their allies for now. Once they’re no longer useful, they risk being slaughtered too, and they can’t defend themselves anywhere as well as the Kurds could (who were still slaughtered en masse in spite of that).

Although Mali adopted a National Charter for Peace and Reconciliation last year that replaces the Algiers Accord, if the Tuareg end their rebellion, cut off their foreign patrons, and ally with the state against JNIM, then elements of this pact could be restored. Although imperfect, the Algiers Accord still provided them with the widest autonomy that could realistically be granted under the regional circumstances, which is better than their fate if they continue their foreign-backed and terrorist-aided rebellion.