US puts Mali al-Qaida affiliate on terrorism blacklist

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has put al-Qaida affiliate in the west African nation of Mali on its terrorism blacklist.

The State Department said Wednesday it had added Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. The step freezes any assets it may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars American from doing business with it or providing the group with any material support.

Mali has faced a wave of violence by groups linked to al-Qaida and Tuareg separatist rebels since 2012, and JNIM has emerged as a leader of extremist violence since it was formed in 2017. It carried out a June 2017 attack at a resort frequented by Westerners in Mali as well as large-scale co-ordinated attacks in Burkina Faso in March of this year.