JNIM–ISSP war
The JNIM–ISSP war is an ongoing armed conflict between Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP), the Sahelian branches of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, respectively. Since ISGS's formation in October 2016 and the creation of the JNIM coalition in 2017, the two groups had been described as the Sahelien exception or Sahelien anomaly: despite the global war between al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates since the latter's splinter from the former in 2014, both ISGS and JNIM have ignored each other and in rare cases worked together against Malian, Nigerien, Burkinabe, French, Russian, and international governments and non-Islamist militias until 2020.