I'm John Batchel. I'm John Batchel. I'm joined by my good colleagues, Bill Roggio,

senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

and Caleb Weiss in Africa for Bridgeway Foundation, as well as for the FDD writing a Longward Journal.

And I recommend all of you study the Long War Journal entry right now,

because something very unusual has happened in Central Africa.

This is the Sahil, the shores of the Sahara, a country called Mali, which is ancient and at the same time fresh,

because it is now looking to be the centerpiece of a coordinated attack by Al Qaeda and its allies.

And the attack so far looks to be successful,

despite the presence in the area of armies not only from Africa, but from Russia. Caleb,

a very good day to you. This is a surprising report. And what we have right now looks like a major

military operation.

What is JN.I.M. Who are they, and what have they done? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, so J.N. I.M. is the group for support of Islam and Muslims. This is Al-Qaeda's branch for West Africa. It's sort of an amalgamation of various other al-Qaeda groups that were operating in Maui and the wider Sahel that coal-West together in 2017,

pledge the Uyghans, then al-Qaeda leader Ibn Osawahiri, as well as Mullah Akamzad as the Taliban.

What they're doing right now is effectively what you said.

From Bamako in the south to hundreds of kilometers away in the north to the Algerian border, they're attacking.

In the north, they're attacking with their allies in the Azoa Liberation Front, or FLA.

This is a coalition of different Tuareg and Malian Arab rebel groups.

In the north, they're taking over Kedal, Algonhawks.

They control parts of Gao, the largest city in the north, various other smaller towns.

They're pushing on Timbuktu.

They claim total victory, essentially, over the Malian state and Russian forces.

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