In the week after the pro-independence Azawad Liberation Front (ALF) seized the small, desert town of Kidal in northeastern Mali, on April 26, the group’s spokesperson celebrated the victory – though not from Kidal, but rather from Paris. In a series of interviews, Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane predicted that Mali’s junta, led by General Assimi Goita, who has held power in Bamako since 2020, would fall, and recognized that the ALF had sealed an “alliance of convenience” with the jihadists from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), a Sahel region al-Qaeda-affiliated group.