UN: $50M Ransom Funded al Qaeda's Mali Offensive

A single hostage ransom of roughly $50 million paid in 2025 helped finance al Qaeda's offensive across Mali and the group's wider global network, United Nations experts said in a new report.

The report was written by the UN team that monitors al Qaeda and Islamic State for the Security Council. It is dated August 10 and appeared on the UN website the following day.

The report does not identify the hostage and does not say who paid. Three regional sources told Reuters the payment came from the United Arab Emirates.

What the UN report says

Most of the "approximately $50 million ransom received in 2025 for the release of a hostage" was redistributed among katibas — units operating across the Sahel that belong to the al Qaeda-linked coalition Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, according to the report.

"These funds played a key role in financing the group's offensive across Mali," the report said. It does not specify how the money was moved or exactly what it bought.

A portion went to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the official al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa and a JNIM member, the report said. That entity then passed cash to al Qaeda's core leadership — which the report says is likely in Iran or Afghanistan — and to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group's faction in Yemen.

JNIM has 7,000 to 8,000 fighters in the Sahel, half of them in Mali, according to the report. The report also says JNIM treats kidnapping both as a funding source and as a way to undermine public confidence in state security.

The UN reports do not explain how the experts know where the money went. The panels are briefed by intelligence services around the world and also use their own sources.