The dispute between the Malian state and the northern movements since the Algiers Agreement was terminated: the recapture of Kidal in 2023, the movements' unification as the Azawad Liberation Front in November 2024, and the 2026 offensive in which the Front retook ground alongside JNIM while refusing the state's terms.
A symmetric arrangement: it reads the same from either side. Authored once, on one record.
The arrangement
- Status
- ActiveIn force and operating. Says nothing about how well it is working, or about which way it is heading.Last material change: 2026-10.
- What it covers
- DiplomaticInstitutionalDefenceCategories the arrangement is documented to include. Not a measure: a relationship covering more of them is described in more detail, not held more firmly.
Summary
The 2015 Algiers Agreement gave the northern movements a place in a decentralised Mali and a share of security; its implementation stalled, the transition authorities terminated it in January 2024, and the army retook Kidal in November 2023 with Russian support. The movements answered at Tinzaouatène in July 2024 and unified as the FLA that November, dropping the coalition framework for a single political-military front that claims self-determination for Azawad. In the April–May 2026 offensives the Front retook Kidal and much of the north in coordination with JNIM, a coordination it presents as tactical. On 6 October 2026 the army and Africa Corps re-entered Kidal without a fight after the Front announced a withdrawal it called strategic and temporary, decided, one of its cadres told RFI, with JNIM. The state describes the Front as terrorists and rejects any territorial or status negotiation; the Front says it will talk only about Azawad's status. Algeria, the former mediator, restored relations with Bamako in July 2026 after a fifteen-month rupture, but no mediation channel between the state and the Front is publicly in operation.
Why it matters
The northern question is the one the state has twice tried to settle by force and once by agreement, and none of the three has held. Its current form — a unified front that has shown it can take the north back — decides whether Mali is negotiating with one insurgency or two, and on whose terms.
Related events
- Azawad Liberation Front created 30 Nov – 1 Dec 2024
Political · Military
- April 2026 offensive — Kidal falls, the defence minister is killed 25 Apr – May 2026
Military · Territorial change · Leadership change
- Mali's prime minister visits Algiers 25 – 26 Aug 2026
Diplomatic
- The army and Africa Corps re-enter Kidal as the FLA withdraws 6 Oct 2026
Military · Territorial change
What remains unknown
- The FLA's relationship with JNIM in the 2026 offensives — coordination, alliance or coincidence of interest — is described differently by the two movements and by observers, and is not established.
- What the Front would accept short of independence, and whether its constituent movements agree on it, is not published.
- Vigil publishes no strength or disposition for the Front.
Readings the evidence also supports
- The 2026 gains can be read as the Front restoring the 2012–13 position by force, or as JNIM's campaign with the Front as a junior partner. The Front's own statements insist on the first; the sequence of attacks is consistent with the second.
Listed because the record's own assessment is not the only one its sources permit — not as a hedge on the assessment above.
Watch questions this relationship bears on
Standing analytical questions whose evidence runs through this relationship, each with its latest review. Derived from the Watch object, never restated here.
All Sahel relationships Open in Explore
Assessed as of — 2026-10 Last reviewed — 2026-10-11