Mali Security Partnership and Counterterrorism Act

Congress finds the following:

(1) The al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen (JNIM) has significantly expanded its reach across central Mali and the broader Sahel, conducting large-scale attacks against security forces and establishing influence in contested regions.

(2) Militant groups including JNIM and the Islamic State Sahel Province have consolidated territorial control across Mali, escalating violence, destabilizing state authority, and extending operations into littoral West African states.

(3) JNIM’s campaign in Mali has included economic disruption tactics that have paralyzed key trade and transport routes, undermined government authority, and contributed to national shortages and economic distress.

(4) The withdrawal of traditional international counterterrorism forces, coupled with weakened regional counterterrorism cooperation, has created a security vacuum that extremist networks are exploiting to expand and entrench themselves.

(5) The Sahel region has become a global epicenter of terrorism-related violence, with extremist activity in that region accounting for a disproportionate share of worldwide terrorist attacks and deaths and with expanded militant networks posing spillover risks to neighboring coastal countries.