Ukraine’s Secret Al-Qaeda Invasion of Africa
By Kit Klarenberg
Source: Al Mayadeen English
23 May 2026 14:27
Ukraine, backed by Western intelligence networks, has expanded covert operations into the Sahel, supporting anti-government and extremist-linked forces in Mali as part of a broader campaign against Russian and Chinese influence in Africa.
On May 13th, French outlet RTL published an explosive report, entirely unremarked upon by English language media. It exposed how Ukrainian military and intelligence units are covertly operating in Mali on France’s behalf, “in coordination” with both ethnic Tuareg rebels and Al Qaeda-linked forces determined to crush the country’s revolutionary government. Furthermore, Kiev is keen to expand and escalate its African operations yet further, and destabilise neighbouring countries. Ukrainian militancy, long-encouraged by the CIA and MI6, has now decisively developed into an independent international threat.
In August 2020, elements of Mali’s military staged a coup, overthrowing Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. Ever since, its government has sought to neutralise Western influence locally, while pursuing radical economic policies for the good of the population. French forces were booted out in 2022 after almost a decade of occupation. Mali has instead looked to China and Russia for economic, military and political assistance, while founding the revolutionary Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Polling shows Malians almost universally embrace their government, and its close alliance with Moscow. However, Bamako’s military administration has throughout its lifetime battled incursions from ethnic Tuareg rebels, backed by murderous extremist groups. Since late April, they have conducted combined offensives, capturing several towns, executing deadly strikes on major cities, attacking state buildings, and murdering Defense Minister Sadio Camara via car bomb. Moreover, government forces backed by Russia’s Africa Corps have been ejected from several key areas.
Bamako and Moscow characterise the bloody upheaval as a thwarted coup attempt. Nonetheless, the situation remains volatile, and potentially grave. RTL now reveals the Al-Qaeda-linked unrest has been orchestrated and practically supported all along by “Ukrainian soldiers on the ground, who are cooperating with the Tuareg rebels.” In turn, France can “continue to operate” in Mali “indirectly”. Through Kiev’s cutouts, Paris provides “operational support” to the unpopular and savage local counter-revolutionary insurgency, in the absence of her own occupying army.
Per RTL, “France relies in particular on numerous French-speaking Ukrainian soldiers who served in the Foreign Legion.” It’s not just French-sponsored Ukrainian soldiers attempting to foment civil war and regime change via brute force in Mali. Units of Kiev’s fearsome CIA and MI6-constructed military intelligence agency, the GUR, are also present in profusion. By “limiting its operational support to these Ukrainian proxies, France is thus avoiding direct cooperation with jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda” into the bargain:
“The Tuareg separatist rebels are seeking to weaken the junta in power in Bamako, while France and Ukraine want to overthrow the junta’s Russian backers, the former Wagner militia members (renamed the Afrika Korps) who did everything they could to drive France out of Africa. A sharing of interests…the Tuareg rebels have a longstanding relationship with French intelligence services in the Sahel.”
‘Syrian Scenario’
RTL reports how “a Franco-Ukrainian alliance” to crush anti-imperial governments in Africa has been long in the making. Strikingly, Kiev took the lead. At the start of 2025, Ukrainian intelligence proposed a “detailed plan” to their French counterparts, “to dislodge the juntas from the Sahel region, and push back the Russian enemy” from the continent altogether. Paris reportedly “did not follow up on this proposal, particularly due to security concerns.” Yet, “the lock has now been lifted.”
To date, a fusion of battle strategies “seems to favor the extremists, who are currently allied with Tuareg separatists” - not merely in Mali, but potentially wherever in the region Russian forces are present. As RTL notes, several Sahel countries harshly condemned Ukraine’s involvement in a brutal July 2024 rebel ambush, which allegedly killed 84 Wagner fighters and 47 Malian soldiers. At the time, a GUR spokesperson boasted how Kiev’s support to the rebels “enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals.”
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Such was Ukraine’s openly advertised centrality to the bloodshed, West African governments issued statements making clear Kiev’s local “interference” was highly unwelcome. Several summoned their respective Ukrainian ambassadors for verbal drubbings. Such was the opprobrium, the BBC contemporaneously enquired whether the operation represented an “own goal in Africa,” threatening to wreck “peaceful Ukrainian diplomacy.” Undeterred, Kiev’s military and intelligence conniving in the Sahel has only ratcheted since. RTL records how this activity is “proving its worth in the region.”
The Ukrainian-enabled capture of “major” cities by Mali’s local Al-Qaeda affiliate has reportedly “caused a stir between the ruling junta and its Russian ally.” Moreover, Defense Minister Sadio Camara’s assassination was “another blow” directly aimed at Russia’s presence in Mali. Described as “number two in the junta” and “Moscow’s man,” Camara “had been trained in Russia.” Whether his death is impactful on the battlefield remains to be seen. But there are ominous indications Ukraine foresees a long engagement in the Sahel.
A lengthy essay published April 29th by Militarnyi, Ukraine’s most prominent military news site, lays bare Kiev’s brutal cloak-and-dagger strategy in Mali and beyond. Headlined Islamist Offensive in Mali: The Prospect of a Syrian Scenario, it details how the successes of Ukraine’s Al Qaeda army in Mali - including Camara’s assassination - are part of a wider military and intelligence operation concerned with “dislodging Russian-Chinese influence from the region” altogether. Damascus being overwhelmed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in mere days in December 2024 was cited as inspiration.
“The fall of Assad in Syria and the ascent of the radical Islamist [HTS] demonstrate that the radical wing’s transition to a moderate format occurs at the moment it takes power, assumes responsibility, and requires legitimization from the international community,” Militarnyi remarks. Kiev’s Mali machinations supposedly work in tandem with disruption of Russia’s supply of food and agrochemicals to Sahel’s revolutionary governments, via “systemic Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refining and chemical production.” These attacks aim to degrade “the capacity of Russia’s leading fertilizer firms.”
Militarnyi promises, “the intensity of Ukrainian strikes against Russian chemical sites will continue to climb.” Meanwhile, Kiev has significantly contributed to the “intensified Islamist offensive” in Mali, dispatching instructors “disseminating FPV drone tactics among insurgent forces” locally. “Rebel battlefield effectiveness” has therefore been “materially boosted”. Beijing is also in the crosshairs of Ukraine’s Sahel offensive, as Moscow’s “hard-power backing” of AES governments - and the “popular loyalty” they enjoy among their populations due to grain and fertilizer deliveries - provides a “security umbrella for Chinese investments.”
‘Clandestine Maneuvers’
An October 2023 Washington Post investigation shed shocking light on the “raging shadow war” waged by Ukrainian intelligence, throughout the West’s proxy conflict with Russia. It documented how many high-profile operations, including targeted assassinations of figures such as Daria Dugin, were the work of “elite teams of Ukrainian operatives drawn from directorates…formed, trained and equipped in close partnership with the CIA.” From 2015 onwards, US spies “forged deep new bonds” with Ukrainian security and intelligence services, almost rebuilding them “from scratch” entirely.
Notwithstanding a separate effective CIA takeover of the SBU, the Agency’s “extensive transformation of the GUR” alone extended to spending many millions of dollars creating new headquarters for the GUR’s “paramilitary division and a separate directorate responsible for electronic espionage.” The CIA has since 2015 variously provided Kiev “with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites” in Ukraine as well as the US, and much more besides. “The new capabilities were transformative,” transforming Kiev’s spying agencies into “potent allies against Moscow.”
In that capacity, the GUR intercepted hundreds of thousands of “separate communications” from Russian military and FSB units on the CIA’s behalf daily. Strikingly, the GUR also “began recruiting operatives for its own new active measures department.” Already just over 18 months into the proxy war, the department’s activities had reportedly raised significant concerns within the CIA and Ukraine itself about the GUR’s use of “cutthroat tactics that may seem justified now…but could later prove difficult to rein in.”
An anonymous former senior CIA official warned the Washington Post, “we are seeing the birth of a set of intelligence services that are like Mossad in the 1970s.” They feared Kiev’s CIA-enhanced “proficiency” at assassinations and other black ops carried “broader risks”, if Ukraine’s “intelligence operations” against third countries “become even bolder.” With eerily precise foresight, they predicted chaos wrought overseas by Kiev’s CIA-trained GUR shadow army “might cause rifts with partners,” placing “serious tension” on Ukraine’s “broader strategic goals.” Just as in Mali now.
Despite these anxieties, at sites first on Ukrainian then US soil, “GUR operatives were trained on skills ranging from clandestine maneuvers behind enemy lines to weapons platforms and explosives.” The military intelligence agency has also launched “dozens of attacks” on Russian targets, including buildings and “noncombatants”, using its deadly in-house drone fleet. A senior Ukrainian operative angsted how such operations play into “Putin’s false narrative” that Kiev poses “a growing danger to ordinary Russians,” and “Ukrainians are coming for them.”
Kiev’s demonic alliance with Al-Qaeda in the Sahel amply demonstrates how her CIA and MI6-assisted military and intelligence capabilities definitively represent a “growing danger”, to average citizens the world over. Kiev is openly plotting to replicate HTS’ violent takeover of Damascus, first in Mali, then in Burkina Faso and Niger. Militarised, extremist-occupied territories are to multiply, while economic warfare impoverishes and enfeebles the military governments, damaging their domestic popularity. Then, they can be brought to heel via forced capitulation, or outright regime change.
It’s been publicly confirmed Kiev’s clandestine assistance was instrumental in toppling Assad. Now, as Militarnyi openly brags, Ukraine’s alliance with Al-Qaeda in Mali is helping drive “a revival of contacts” between AES and the West. This has led to “the first publicly confirmed US diplomatic engagement” with all three Alliance members, in March. Thanks to the CIA’s covert assistance, and her experiences fighting Russia, militarised Ukraine possesses the capabilities to train its proxy crosshairs globally, with devastating effect. A new World War has begun.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
