Mali’s junta has sought to reassure citizens after Islamist militants tightened a blockade on highways feeding the capital, torching lorries and kidnapping foreign drivers in a campaign analysts warn could strangle the economy.

Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maïga admitted the government was “trying to improve security on the routes” in a rare acknowledgement of the scale of the crisis gripping the landlocked nation.

The BBC reports that the al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) erected checkpoints in Mali’s Kayes and Nioro-du-Sahel regions, extorting “taxes” from traders and setting fire to fuel tankers, buses and convoys. Villages have been brought to a standstill, with markets shuttered and transport suspended.

The blockade, which began after six Senegalese lorry drivers were briefly kidnapped in early September, marks a new strategy by the militants, analysts say. 

“Economic asphyxiation” is the goal, according to Mamadou Bodian of Senegal’s Cheikh Anta Diop University.

The Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute warned the militants aim to “destabilise, or even suffocate the Malian economy, isolate the capital Bamako and increase economic pressure on the Malian transitional regime”.

Army under pressure

The military initially dismissed reports of a blockade as “an information war orchestrated by foreign media”. Spokesman Col Souleymane Dembélé insisted: “No systemic interruption of transport has been observed … the rainy season and not the actions of terrorist groups” was the main challenge in Kayes.

He described the militants’ campaign as “the last gasps of an enemy at bay and in retreat”.

But mounting evidence of ambushes, arson and abductions has forced the authorities to react. The army said last week it had bombed a JNIM camp in Kayes, killing “several dozen militants”, and launched “large-scale offensive” operations along the Diéma-Nioro corridor. Reinforcements have been deployed to protect convoys, while state media reported some hostages were freed.

Despite these claims, locals say militant checkpoints remain in place and transport companies have halted operations, paralysing trade flows into the country.

Kayes is Mali’s “gateway to Senegal” and a logistics hub accounting for about 80 percent of the country’s gold production. Its roads channel fuel, food and manufactured goods from ports in Dakar and Nouakchott into Bamako.

By targeting Kayes, militants are extending their reach from northern and central Mali into the south, threatening to encircle the capital. Analysts warn the strategy could ripple into neighbouring Senegal, Mauritania and Ivory Coast, which are already feeling the effects of disrupted supply chains.

Mali is Senegal’s largest African trading partner, with exports worth more than $1.4 billion last year. The Union of Senegalese Truckers described the abductions of drivers as a direct threat to regional commerce.

Fuel shortages have not yet hit Bamako, but pump prices are up 10 percent in some districts and power cuts are worsening. The crisis is eroding confidence in the junta’s ability to guarantee security, despite its reliance on Russian Africa Corps mercenaries.

“JNIM’s choice to target buses and tankers is not insignificant – it aims to strike at the heart of Mali’s social and economic mobility,” Bamada.net reported.

What began as a tactical disruption, analysts warn, could evolve into a prolonged siege, choking Bamako and exposing the fragility of Mali’s state institutions – with consequences stretching well beyond its borders.