On April 25, armed groups launched near-simultaneous attacks against military installations and key strategic sites across Mali. Claimed by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, a jihadist group, and conducted in coordination with Tuareg separatist forces from the Front de libération de l’Azawad, the attacks targeted multiple nodes across the country’s security architecture simultaneously, from the capital Bamako to Gao, Mopti, and Kidal.While the attacks themselves were a shock, they should be understood as the logical endpoint of a deteriorating security trajectory that Western governments have watched from an ever-increasing distance. The geographic scope of the attacks, the targeting of senior officials,The post Western Withdrawal, Jihadist Expansion: How the Sahel Became Ground Zero for Global Terrorism appeared first on War on the Rocks.