The Sahel Insurgency: Jihadist Expansion and State Collapse

The Sahel — the semi-arid zone stretching from Senegal to Chad — has become one of the world's most active theaters of jihadist insurgency. Over the past decade, two principal armed groups, the Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), have exploited weak governance, ethnic grievances, and resource competition to expand across Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, and into Nigeria and the coastal states of Benin and Togo.

Background

The current insurgency traces its origins to the collapse of governance in northern Mali following the 2012 Tuareg rebellion and coup. French military intervention (Operation Serval, later Barkhane) stabilized the situation in the short term but failed to address the political and developmental conditions enabling insurgent recruitment.

Three military coups — in Mali (2020, 2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023) — have reshaped the security environment. All three juntas expelled French forces and invited Russian military training personnel and Africa Corps (formerly Wagner Group) mercenaries. The Alliance of Sahel States formed by these three countries formally withdrew from ECOWAS in 2024.

Current Situation

JNIM has gained control over territory in northern and central Mali, including a blockade of Timbuktu, and operates extensively in Burkina Faso, while the separate Islamic State Sahel Province is confined to northern Burkina Faso and western Niger (Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker, 2026-07-29). In Burkina Faso, the junta controls Ouagadougou and the largest cities, but government authority has contracted severely. Analysts cited by Africa Defense Forum estimate that JNIM and Islamic State Sahel Province control as much as 60 percent of Burkina Faso's territory, up from a government-stated 40 percent goal for recapture (Africa Defense Forum, 2025-11-18).

The insurgency is expanding southward. JNIM and ISGS attacks in northern Benin, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire have increased significantly, threatening coastal states with stronger institutional capacity but limited counterinsurgency experience. The Benin-Niger-Nigeria border region is emerging as a new front.

Africa Corps personnel, operating alongside Malian and Burkinabé forces, have been implicated in mass atrocities against civilian populations, including the Moura massacre in Mali, where a UN human rights fact-finding report found strong indications that more than 500 people were killed, the vast majority summarily executed, by Malian troops and foreign military personnel over five days in March 2022 (OHCHR, 2023-05-12).

Outlook

The Sahel insurgency's trajectory is broadly negative. The removal of French counterterrorism capacity has not been matched by effective Russian-backed operations. The juntas' reliance on Africa Corps has accelerated civilian atrocities without producing territorial gains against the insurgents.

Analysts assess that the southern expansion toward coastal West Africa — Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire — represents the most significant medium-term security challenge. These states have larger economies, stronger militaries, and Atlantic coastlines critical to global trade, making their destabilization a strategic concern beyond the immediate region.

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