The imam against the insurgents
In Mali gaat er bijna geen dag meer voorbij zonder een nieuwe jihadistische dreiging. En dat al lang niet meer alleen in de gebieden die al bijna 15 jaar onder die dreiging moeten leven. Toch antwoordt de militaire junta vrijwel uitsluitend met militair geweld en meer autoritarisme. Een strijd die ze onmogelijk kan winnen, zelfs niet met de steun van de talrijke Russische adviseurs. De mogelijke terugkeer van de verbannen geestelijke Mahmoud Dicko naar Mali zou een uitdaging kunnen vormen voor de jihadistische bewegingen. Hierdoor zou de politieke ruimte weer wat worden geopend en de aanspraak van de extremistische bewegingen op religieus gezag kunnen worden betwist.
Imam Mahmoud Dicko, one of Mali’s most influential religious and political figures, has been living in exile in Algeria since late 2023 after falling out with Mali’s military rulers.
In February 2025, his planned return to Bamako was abruptly postponed amid heavy security deployments and rising tensions between Mali’s junta and Algeria.
Since then, a new political movement called the Coalition des Forces pour la République (CFR) has announced its intention to bring Dicko back to lead a constitutional transition in Mali, restore civil liberties and open dialogue to end the ongoing conflict.
What would his return mean for jihadist groups operating in Mali?
Scholars of Mali have long described Dicko as far more than a mere cleric; he is an influential leader and a political power broker who has repeatedly emerged at moments of national crisis.
Originally from the Timbuktu region, he chaired the Haut Conseil islamique malien (HCIM) for more than a decade and was involved in several negotiations between the Malian government and violent extremist groups.
In 2020, he became the central figure of the June 5 Movement–Rally of Patriotic Forces (M5-RFP) protest movement, mobilizing tens of thousands of Malians against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK) over corruption, insecurity, and failing governance.
Those protests were the direct catalyst for the military coup that removed Keita from power in August 2020.
Although Dicko later stepped back from active politics, his moral authority and mass following never disappeared. This influence was further amplified by Mali’s deteriorating relationship with Algeria after 2020.
Tensions peaked in December 2023 and April 2025, as Bamako drifted away from regional diplomacy and Algiers. As Dicko’s relationship with the new military rulers deteriorated, he was eventually pushed into exile in Algeria in late 2023.
As Mali’s junta has tightened its grip on power, political space has collapsed. In May 2025, the military government dissolved all political parties and banned their activities.
From exile, Dicko has continued to speak directly to Malians including through widely circulated videos in Bambara and Fulfulde on WhatsApp and YouTube, mobilizing supporters and calling for a return to constitutional order.
Jihadist groups have always listened carefully to Dicko because he competes with them for the same audience: Mali’s religious public. Unlike armed Islamist movements, Dicko rejects violence justified in the name of religion and insists that if Islam is to thrive in Mali, it must be through moral persuasion, not coercion.
Yet many Malians remain skeptical of him. Critics accuse Dicko of blurring the line between religion and politics, of legitimizing extremists by calling for dialogue with jihadist leaders, and of mobilizing street protests that helped weaken elected governments before the coups.
Others worry that his immense religious authority could undermine secular institutions even if he rejects armed jihad.
In his public speeches and videos, Dicko has repeatedly argued that political change should come through dialogue, elections, and social reform and not through jihad or the imposition of religious law by force. That difference matters.
For jihadist groups, Islam is a tool for seizing territory and enforcing obedience; for Dicko, it is a source of ethical authority within a pluralistic society.
One of the clearest reactions came from Darul Al-Mourabitoun, part of the Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) jihadist coalition. In an audio message circulated online in November 2025, the group explicitly rejected Dicko’s political project and the republican system he represents: “We do not need a constitution or a republic,” the speaker declared. “We are fighting for Allah and for the establishment of an Islamic state.”
The message went further, warning that even if Dicko became president, they would continue to fight him if he governed under Mali’s constitution. For Darul al-Mourabitoun, the republic itself represents ‘infidelity’. Yet in the same breath, the group offered conditional ‘dialogue’ but only for one purpose: transforming Mali into a religiously based state governed by Sharia.
Dialogue, in this framing, is not compromise but submission. This response is revealing. Jihadist movements are already interpreting Dicko’s return not as peace, but as a strategic opening either to co-opt him or to confront him.
Mali’s war is often described in military terms: who controls which roads, which towns fell last month, and which armed group is gaining ground. But the conflict has always had another center of gravity: legitimacy.
In a war driven as much by narratives and grievances as by guns, who is allowed to speak, organize, and compete politically may determine whether Mali moves toward stability or deeper insurgency. That is why the looming and politically contested return of Imam Mahmoud Dicko matters.
His physical return to Mali in the near term remains uncertain, constrained by strained Malian-Algerian relations and the junta’s fear of his mass following. But if political space reopens or regional pressure forces a negotiated transition, his comeback could happen quickly.
And when it does, it will matter not because a cleric can magically negotiate away jihadist violence, but because he could reshape the political environment that sustains it.
Thus far, jihadists have dominated the narrative about the future of Mali, arguing that the state is illegitimate, foreign-imposed, corrupt, and hostile to ordinary people. If Dicko’s movement succeeds in reopening civic space, restoring constitutional politics, and giving Malians a real voice, it could directly weaken extremist groups, who thrive when people believe that force is the only path to change.
The implications also stretch far beyond Mali’s borders. A civilian political opening would send a signal to pro-democracy movements across West Africa that constitutional politics remains possible even after coups.
If, instead, Dicko’s return is blocked or suppressed, it reinforces the message that civic mobilization is futile.
Mali sits at the center of militant networks that increasingly link the Sahel to other coastal West African states; a reduction in recruitment and local collaboration could slow the spread of violence southward, while renewed repression and instability could accelerate it.
For ECOWAS, already struggling to manage successive coups and strained diplomatic relations in the region, Dicko’s return would test whether negotiated civilian pathways can still be supported or whether military entrenchment has become the new normal.
In that sense, Dicko’s comeback is not merely a domestic political development. It is a regional inflection point. Where it opens space for constitutional politics or deepens confrontation will shape not only Mali’s war but West Africa’s political trajectory in the years ahead.
Mohammed Sanda
Mohammed Sanda is a PhD Student currently working on Conflict diffusion in the Sahel at the Department of Geography, University of Florida (USA).
Dit artikel verscheen op dinsdag 10 maart 2026 op de Amerikaanse kritische website ‘Africa is A Country’: https://africasacountry.com/2026/03/the-imam-against-the-insurgents
Lees ook:
– Goïta, gift to the insurgents https://africasacountry.com/2025/06/goita-gift-to-the-insurgents
– Redefining Sahelian diplomacy https://africasacountry.com/2025/03/redefining-sahelian-diplomacy
– The junta belt https://africasacountry.com/2023/10/the-junta-belt
– Western media is missing the point https://africasacountry.com/2023/02/western-media-is-missing-the-point
– Mahmoud Dicko: The ‘people’s imam’ challenging Mali’s Keita https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/20/mahmoud-dicko-the-peoples-imam-challenging-malis-keita
– Déplacements forcés : plus de 610 000 personnes sous protection au Mali (3 april 2026) https://journaldumali.com/deplacements-forces-plus-de-610-000-personnes-sous-protection-au-mali/
– Sahel : Le nouvel épicentre du terrorisme mondial (27 maart 2026) https://journaldumali.com/sahel-le-nouvel-epicentre-du-terrorisme-mondial/
– Global Terrorism Index. A comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last decade https://www.economicsandpeace.org/global-terrorism-index/
– Mali’s sovereignty dilemma https://cimic-npo.org/2025/11/24/67-014/
– Sahel: het Franse leger heeft zich hopeloos vastgereden in het zand van Mali https://cimic-npo.org/2021/03/23/sahel-het-franse-leger-heeft-zich-hopeloos-vastgereden-in-het-zand-van-mali/
– Towards Feminist Peace: How ECOWAS Can Reshape Peace and Security in West Africa https://cimic-npo.org/2026/02/22/70-010/
– Militairen aan de macht in de Sahel: de puinhoop wordt alleen maar groter https://cimic-npo.org/2023/02/26/40-001/
– This time it’s worse – It’s business, stupid! https://cimic-npo.org/2022/12/27/38-012/
– Waarom al die staatsgrepen? https://cimic-npo.org/2023/11/23/47-011/
– Should Military Leaders be Barred from Addressing the UN? https://cimic-npo.org/2023/10/23/46-011/
– Elections in Mali and Burkina Faso postponed for forever (and a day) https://cimic-npo.org/2024/06/30/54-008/
– Thinking about the Sahel (blog Bram Posthumus in vier delen) https://cimic-npo.org/2024/09/26/55-011/ https://cimic-npo.org/2024/10/26/56-003/ https://cimic-npo.org/2024/11/18/57-007/ https://cimic-npo.org/2024/12/12/58-001/
– Zoveelste staatsgreep in West-Afrika duidt op regio in diepe crisis https://cimic-npo.org/2022/01/28/item29-010-2/
