President Donald Trump is now considering waging another war—this time in the West African country of Mali.
The Trump administration is looking to strike an al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as JNIM, the Washington Post has reported, citing current and former U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
If approved, it would mark the eighth country that Trump, who has dubbed himself “president of peace,” has ordered strikes on in his second term.
But senior U.S. officials are reportedly in disagreement on whether they should actually attack the militant group. National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, is the most vocal advocate for striking them, the Post reported.
Gorka, who has been a prominent architect of U.S. counterterrorism policy under the second Trump administration, long pushed for the U.S. to get involved in countering Islamist extremism. He has been an outspoken advocate for confronting Iran, and has been highly critical of those who have questioned the administration’s current war there.
In recent years, Mali has seen bouts of violence between Islamist militant groups and the Russian mercenaries whom the government hired to get the country under control.
The militant groups, in particular the JNIM, which the administration is considering striking, have grown increasingly powerful and have turned the nation into a terrorism hotspot.
Mali had been supported by French troops and U.N. forces, but after its former government President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was toppled in a coup, the new military-led government effectively expelled them and tore up security cooperation with the U.S.
Following the withdrawal of French and U.N. forces from Mali in 2023, Russia’s military and paramilitary forces have joined with Mali’s junta to try and combat Islamist insurgents, including groups like the al-Qaeda linked JNIM.
But since the Russians showed up, the security situation has remained very volatile as the Russian-backed forces have seen major defeats. The Sahel region has turned into the world’s deadliest terrorism hot spot, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
When reached for comment, the Pentagon declined to comment on the Mali strike plans, and referred the Daily Beast to the White House, which did not confirm or deny the potential strikes.
A White House official told the Daily Beast that the U.S. “hopes the Alliance of Sahel States prevails against terrorism, but the blame for the deteriorating security situation falls upon Russia, who has proven to be an ineffective security partner for Mali.”
The official said the U.S. “has been urging North and West African governments to purchase U.S. equipment and services to support their war efforts against the terrorists.”
“We urge regional partners and NATO allies to support the Alliance of Sahel States in their war against JNIM and ISIS,” the official added.
The Alliance of Sahel States includes Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, West African countries whose military-led governments have turned to Russia for security help after overthrowing their democratically elected governments and cutting ties with the U.S. and Europe.
A new skirmish in Africa comes as Trump has repeatedly boasted that he has ended eight wars during his second administration.
Trump has claimed he has ended conflicts between Israel and Hamas, Pakistan and India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, Cambodia and Thailand, and Serbia and Kosovo.
In reality, several of these conflicts were not full-fledged wars, nor have they been completely resolved.
Before his war with Iran, the president had also been claiming that he ended conflicts between Israel and Iran, but those claims have gone away after Israel and the U.S. together launched strikes on the country starting on February 28.
Potential military action in Mali would only add to the list of countries Trump has ordered strikes against, which includes Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela, whose former president the administration kidnapped in January.
Trump has also threatened to take several places by force, but those have not materialized.
These include Greenland, Canada, Cuba, the Gaza Strip, which he has called an “oceanfront property” and the “Riviera of the Middle East,” and Panama, to gain control of the Panama Canal.
