Al-Qaeda militants poised to take over an entire country

At the beginning [JNIM] was attacking some businesses and especially some industrial plants, which was really worrying,” said Beatriz de León Cobo, an associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute, a think tank. “But now the fuel shortage has proven really challenging for Bamako and for the regime...The problem right now is the criminal economy surrounding the fuel. So essentially everyone is taking the fuel for themselves and there’s a lot of contraband, and in the black market it’s being sold massively.”