Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), a Mali-based terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaeda, claims its forces killed 70 soldiers in raids on two military outposts in northeastern Benin last week.
The claim was made on Thursday and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization. According to the communique from JNIM, the group’s fighters struck two military posts in the northeastern Benin province of Kandi, about 300 miles from the de facto national capital of Cotonou.
The Beninese military did not respond when Reuters attempted to confirm JNIM’s claims on Sunday. If the claim is accurate, it would represent the worst losses inflicted on Benin’s military in a single jihadi attack. JNIM claimed a previous attack on northern Benin in January killed at least 28 soldiers.
Some Beninese military sources have leaked news to foreign media organizations that an attack on two military outposts did occur last Thursday. However, the sources claim a much lower casualty count than JNIM, totaling only eight dead and 13 wounded. They also claim 11 of the attackers were killed.
The Republic of Benin is a small West African nation bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, and Niger to the north. The distance from Contonou, located on the Gulf of Guinea, to the northernmost part of Benin bordered by the Niger River is only about 420 miles. Benin was a French colony until 1960.
JNIM, whose name loosely translates to “Union for Supporting Islam and Muslims,” is a jihadi organization formed in 2017 by merging four smaller groups. The new terrorist conglomerate originally operated out of wilderness areas in Burkina Faso and Niger, but expanded into Benin and Togo in 2021 and 2022, respectively. At the time of its foundation, the group swore fealty to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
JNIM’s stated long-term goal is to drive French and other Western forces out of West Africa and create an Islamist caliphate. The group takes advantage of poverty and ethnic hatreds to recruit fighters, raises funds through various racketeering activities, and spends its money to spread as much death and chaos as possible.
The government of Benin said in December 2024 that over 120 of its troops had been killed fighting jihadi groups since 2021. Benin sent about 3,000 of its troops to the border with Niger in 2022 for an operation called “Mirador,” which was intended to hold insurgents at bay.
JNIM and its rival, the local ISIS franchise known as the Islamic State-Sahel Province (ISSP), dramatically increased their activities in Niger, Nigeria, and Benin in 2024. The Sahel is a region south of the Sahara Desert that has long been a hotspot of terrorist and insurgent activity. The security situation took a turn for the worse after Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger were seized by military juntas and began expelling or alienating Western powers, losing their invaluable counter-terrorism assistance.
Recently, ISSP has maintained a lower profile, while JNIM has attempted headline-grabbing, high-casualty terrorist attacks and cranks out propaganda to attract new recruits. JNIM also follows the al-Qaeda model of building alliances with local tribes and using an extortionate “tax system” to finance its expansion.
In addition to making itself look fearsome and powerful, its claimed attacks on Beninese bases would further JNIM’s goal of making it hard for Benin to conduct counter-terrorist operations in the border region. Some analysts believe the group’s near-term objective is to cut off all lines of supply and reinforcement to Burkina Faso, in preparation for toppling the Burkinabe junta government and declaring the birth of a caliphate.
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