Did you know that roughly 60% of a country of 23 million people is currently controlled by a division of al-Qaeda? That thousands of square miles in countries neighboring that country were controlled by the Islamic State? That 51% of all terrorism-related deaths in 2024 happened in a cluster of around five countries? If you have not heard much about these developments, it’s probably because they are not happening in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else American news agencies regularly cover. Rather, they are happening in Africa. All across the Sahel — a region bordering the tropical forests of West Africa and the Sahara Desert — Islamist militant groups have been slowly gaining ground, destabilizing the already fragile political balance in the region and leading to the deaths of tens of thousands.
Background
Before getting into the specifics of how Islamism has become so prominent in the Sahel, it is first necessary to establish both what the Sahel is and give the region a bit of historical background.
The Sahel is an environmental region of Africa, mostly contained within the countries of Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Sudan. To its north lies the Sahara Desert, while to its south lies the West African grasslands, rainforests, and eventually the Gulf of Guinea coast. While not quite resembling that of the vast desert to the north, the climate of the Sahel is fairly dry, making large-scale agriculture difficult and the acquisition of food, at times, even harder. While some large cities are scattered throughout the region, the residents of the Sahel are traditionally nomadic herders.
As a borderland between the gold trading kingdoms of West Africa and the Mediterranean empires of North Africa, the Sahel has a rich history of kingdoms and empires that made themselves rich off of trans-Saharan trade. Most famous of these kingdoms is the Mali Empire, which encompassed almost half a million square miles at its peak and whose most prominent king, Mansa Musa, awed the outside world with his staggering wealth on his pilgrimage to Mecca in the early fourteenth century. Other prominent kingdoms, such as the Songhai and Gao Empires, grew similarly rich off the trans-Saharan trade for roughly 1000 years, from the latter half of the first millennium to the 1700s.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, the trans-Saharan trade began to dry up; the arrival of Europeans in the New World opened up new trade routes and new sources of gold and other precious metals, which had previously been imported almost entirely from West Africa. The decline in trade — combined with drought and famine — led to a massive crisis among the Sahelian states, destroying their governmental integrity and drastically reducing the population. The subsequent conflicts that broke out in the region resulted in many being sold into enslavement in the New World colonies, further exacerbating the region’s population crisis. By the time European colonial powers set their eyes on the region in the nineteenth century, much of it was devastated: a shadow of what it once was.
Most of the Sahel was colonized by France in the late nineteenth century, though its fringes, such as northern Nigeria and Sudan, were colonized by the United Kingdom. As in many other European colonies, the native population of the region was denied numerous fundamental rights and privileges; any attempts to rise against French authority were brutally suppressed. In the 1950s, the French colonies in Africa gradually gained more autonomy, eventually culminating in their independence in the early 1960s.
Independence did not mean the end of French influence, however. In many former French colonies, particularly those in the Sahel, the French government maintained significant political, economic, and military ties in a system known as Françafrique. Successive French governments encouraged strong ties with political and business leaders in Africa, intervened militarily in dozens of conflicts, and even pegged the currencies of various West and Central African nations to its own currency, the Franc. While France’s efforts to maintain influence over its former colonies diminished after the end of the Cold War, Françafrique remains relevant as a concept and has spurred resentment in West and Central Africa that lasts until today.
Immediate Causes
Since independence, the nations of the Sahel have experienced significant instability. Coups d’état have been rampant; Mali and Niger have experienced five successful coups d’état since independence, while Burkina Faso has experienced a whopping nine. Military dictators often rule countries in the region for decades on end, and what small periods exist between autocratic military rule tend to quickly meet an ignominious end at the hands of disgruntled army officers. Further, corruption has been rampant for decades, resulting in money that would otherwise have been invested in infrastructure and public services being directed into the pockets of businessmen and politicians. All of these factors have combined to seriously hinder both the improvement of living conditions and the development of strong governmental institutions in the region.
In the absence of development and stable governance, it is unsurprising that radical militant organizations have often filled the void. Islamist extremism in the Sahel, however, has its roots in the north. In the 1990s, Algeria found itself embroiled in a civil war between the established government and various Islamist groups of varying degrees of extremism. While the government eventually found itself victorious and managed to get most prominent Islamists to surrender by 2002, some groups, including those aligned with al-Qaeda, escaped into the depths of the Sahara and continued to sow insurgency.
Originally intended to overthrow the Algerian government, the Islamist insurgency quickly spread across the Sahara, eventually reaching the Sahel in the early 2000s. After around a decade of low-level insurgency, some of these conflicts broke out into full-scale wars in the 2010s. Following a series of coups and further instability in the 2020s, Islamist groups continued to spread, taking large swaths of territory across the region. The segments below will focus on recent developments in the three countries most deeply affected by the current conflict: Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and what they might entail for the region as a whole.
Mali
The war in Mali, which has raged on since 2012, originated from agitation by two different groups: Tuareg separatists and Islamist extremists. The Tuaregs are a nomadic subgroup of Berbers, a collection of ethnic groups found across North Africa and the Sahara. Tuaregs make up a large proportion of the population in northern Mali, which is mostly located within the Sahara-Sahel borderlands. Feeling ignored by the government in their calls for autonomy, Tuareg activists and militants founded the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (“MNLA”) in 2011, which began an armed revolt against the Malian government in 2012. To bolster its chances of success, the secular-nationalist MNLA allied with Ansar Dine, a jihadist group, and various other Islamist groups, such as al-Qaeda. Within months, the alliance of rebels had taken most of northern Mali, resulting in the declaration of independence of a new country named “Azawad.”
The rebels’ success did not last for long, however, as factionalism between the MNLA and its jihadist allies began to grow, and French troops arrived on the ground in 2013 to suppress the Islamist rebels. Over the next decade, control of northern Mali slipped between the MNLA, government, and Islamist rebels, and the conflict quickly spread beyond the confines of the area claimed by Azawad. The Malian government’s stability quickly crumbled, resulting in coups d’état in 2012, 2020, and 2021. Soon after the 2021 coup, French troops withdrew from Mali after over eight years of fighting, and were replaced by Wagner Group mercenaries from Russia.
Meanwhile, in 2017, following years of infighting, numerous Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Ansar Dine, merged into a single group: the Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM for short. JNIM forces have fought against the Islamic State, the Malian government, and Tuareg Separatists for eight years now, but have, in the last year, made rapid gains in Mali. Their efforts have spread outward, crucially along Mali’s western and eastern borders.
Burkina Faso
One of the countries to which Islamist militant groups spread from Mali was Burkina Faso, located on Mali’s eastern border. Jihadist encroachment into Burkina Faso has been ongoing since the mid-2010s, when groups such as Boko Haram — best known for its insurgency in Northern Nigeria — and Ansarul Islam began carrying out terrorist attacks in places such as Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, in addition to attacks on Burkinabè and French soldiers and military facilities.
After JNIM was formed, it quickly joined in on the attacks. Despite efforts by a coalition of Burkinabè and French soldiers, JNIM forces continued to infiltrate further and further into Burkina Faso’s heartland and into the eastern side of the country. In early 2018, for instance, militants launched another attack in Ouagadougou, targeting in particular the French embassy. A few years later, in 2023, French troops withdrew from the country following pressure from the Burkinabè government. Militants also launched frequent attacks on churches and Christian religious processions; around 1 in 4 people in Burkina Faso is Christian, unlike Mali, which is predominantly Muslim. Ethnic tensions also caused conflict, as different groups accused each other of supporting Islamists.
However, as in Mali, it was not until the past few years that tensions seemed to have flared up to a breaking point. JNIM insurgents have been slowly advancing through Burkina Faso’s territory, especially along its borders with Mali and Niger, and show few signs of stopping any time soon. Changes in government, brought about in twin coups d’état in January and September 2022, have brought about no changes in the military situation. Just a few days ago, for example, JNIM forces posted a video of dozens of Malian and Burkinabè soldiers, whom they had captured in the prior weeks.
Niger
The origins of the Islamist militant presence in Niger are similar to those of their spread to Burkina Faso. Members of both JNIM and the Islamic State have been carrying out attacks across the country, both against the central government and against each other, for over a decade, though much of the militant activity is carried out in the western regions of Niger, which are closest to Mali and Burkina Faso. As with the two countries, the attacks in Niger have significantly destabilized the central government, resulting in a coup d’état in 2023. Again, as with Mali and Burkina Faso, changes in government have been of no use in halting the spread of militancy.
In Niger, which has one of the most precarious environmental situations of the Sahel states, this conflict could prove devastating. Poor environmental conditions, such as drought and flooding, in addition to disruptions from terrorist attacks, are already increasing mortality rates in Niger. Around 500,000 people have already been displaced from their homes.
Elsewhere and Implications
The three countries listed above are not the only places where Islamist militants are posing an ever-greater threat to national and regional stability. Militants from JNIM and other groups have already set their sights on coastal areas of West Africa, making incursions into Togo, Benin, and the Ivory Coast. Even in areas where militants are not directly attacking residents, the effects of the conflict still run deep. Refugees from Burkina Faso and Mali, mostly ethnic Fulanis — a group often targeted for JNIM recruitment — have faced discrimination for supposed ties to Islamist groups. Tensions over the threat of Islamism, further, have eroded trust in governments, leading to the possibility that the so-called “Coup Belt” in the Sahel may spread further across Africa.
What is next for the governments of the Sahel and of West Africa as a whole? The path forward may be complicated. The withdrawal of French troops from many countries in West Africa, for instance, presents a welcome step away from what some have described as a system of neo-colonialism, but it also leaves a security vacuum in many countries that they must fill as quickly and effectively as possible. Nations in the Economic Community of West African States — an alliance of West African states of which Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger were members until they simultaneously withdrew in 2024 — have made efforts to create a regional “counterterrorism force.” However, unless the three Sahel states with the strongest Islamist insurgency find a way to counter it quickly, the immediate outlook is grim.
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