Why the Sahel’s Violence Is More Than a Local Problem

Editor’s Note: The constant jihadist violence in the Sahel has long been a danger to local regimes, and U.S. efforts to combat it have made little headway. Jason Warner and CJ Pine note that the violence in the region is growing and is increasingly affecting U.S. interests. As a result, ignoring the region is a recipe for disaster.

Daniel Byman

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Africa has become the new epicenter for global jihadist terrorism. By 2022, the Global Terrorism Index identified the Sahel as the region with the deadliest and fastest-growing terrorist groups, and the UN secretary-general likewise declared Africa as the new global hub of terrorism. When Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan were the locus of such activity during various stages of the global “war on terror,” they received overwhelming global attention, for better or for worse; in contrast, the global community has offered a general collective shrug as a combination of al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates have run roughshod over Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and are now making concerted pushes to the West African littoral. This logic reflects policymakers’ relative deprioritization of African security and conclusion that Sahelian violence, while tragic and destabilizing, is primarily local and not directed outside of the region.

To the contrary, we argue that while the Sahel’s violence itself appears likely to remain centered in the region, recent events demonstrate that the consequences of the Sahel’s spiraling violence will not remain localized. From economics to security to humanitarian demands, the Sahel’s violence requires new policy responses, shifts in investments, and security partnerships.

Territorial and Technological Advances

Sahelian terrorist groups’ territory and reach are expanding like never before. In the region, they already operate in wide swathes of Mali and Burkina Faso and parts of Niger. Both al-Qaeda-affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State-Sahel Province are continuing their concerted pushes southward toward coastal West Africa in a bid to create a contiguous land bridge that would strengthen their mobility and illicit trade. They have conducted attacks in Togo and Benin—though not yet in Ghana—to make that happen. JNIM’s recent expansion westward has gone so far as to lead it to conduct attacks in close proximity to Senegal’s border and, farther north, arrests of Sahel Province members have occurred in Morocco. In northwestern Nigeria, Lakawura, an emergent group that has also pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, has opened a new front against government forces.

African affiliates of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have aided their expansion with their rapid and effective adoption of commercial drones to drop explosives and conduct reconnaissance. Concurrently, they have reportedly increased their collusion with certain Latin American drug cartels to traffic drugs, raising new concerns for U.S. policymakers. These realities, combined with the ever-deepening centrality of Africa to the global jihadist movement—exemplified by the emir of the Islamic State now (allegedly) basing his operations in Somalia—speak to the facilitating structural conditions on the continent.

Civilians in the Sahel bear the brunt of the insecurity. According to the United Nations, as of October 2025, four million people in the Sahel have been displaced by a combination of conflict and climate change; 80 percent of these are women and children. Civil society coalitions have raised the alarm that Sahelian governments’ stringent regulations under the auspices of countering terrorist financing have blocked humanitarian services. Governments’ heavy-handed military tactics and abuses against journalists and human rights defenders have fueled popular anger and fear and accelerated terrorist recruitment.

Global Actors Drawn In

Against the backdrop of the deteriorating situation, a handful of recent events have shown the overlapping paths by which Sahelian violence is compelling international action. These short-term responses, though, are inadequate to the challenge, which will require a long-term plan.

The first event, and likely the most overlooked, was the kidnapping of American missionary Kevin Rideout from Niamey, Niger, on Oct. 21. Abducted from outside his home in the capital in the same neighborhood as the Nigerien presidential palace, his whereabouts have been tracked to a region where the Islamic State-Sahel Province is active, leading to assumptions that the group was responsible. The U.S. Embassy has been working with local Nigerien authorities to secure his release and has updated travel warnings to the country, noting a “heightened risk of kidnapping throughout Niger.” Other countries are responding to similar situations: In October, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) paid some $50 million for the release of two of its citizens kidnapped by JNIM. JNIM has also released French, Spanish, and Australian citizens; their governments likely paid ransoms as well, though they did not officially acknowledge this.

Second was the revelation that Nigeria has been newly designated as a “Country of Particular Concern” by the United States over accusations that it was allowing the targeted killing of Christians in the country by violent extremist organizations. Though numerous observers have made clear that more Muslims have died at the hands of the perpetrators—a combination of jihadist and non-jihadist actors, some associated with the Islamic State—the United States has nevertheless threatened a possible intervention in Nigeria unless the killings are halted. This prospect has raised serious concerns in Nigeria, the United States, the African Union, and globally. While it remains unclear how serious a U.S. intervention in Nigeria to stop al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked militants might be, a vibrant ecosystem of U.S. political actors referring to a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria has fueled these calls.

The third development has been JNIM’s fuel blockade in Mali. Beginning in September, JNIM, an offshoot organization of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), started encircling Bamako, blocking major roadways in and out of the capital. The result has been widespread fuel shortages, higher food prices, a crippled ruling government, and the suspension of schooling. Perhaps most damagingly, the blockade has burnished the image of the terrorist group in the eyes of would-be recruits. JNIM has conducted a campaign of unabating violence that made Burkina Faso and Mali the first and third most terror-ridden countries globally in 2024, and the Sahel the generator of more than half of the world’s terrorist deaths in the same year.

But more than merely crippling Mali, JNIM’s fuel blockade has also compelled action from global states. Many states—including the United States, France, and the UAE—have urged their citizens to evacuate and avoid travel to Mali, and additionally, JNIM’s fuel blockade has caused policymakers to worry that Bamako could fall to an al-Qaeda-affiliate, similar to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Concerns about the emergence of a jihadist state or statelet in the Sahel have become common among analysts, researchers, think tanks, academics, and media, who worry that an al-Qaeda-led state in the Sahel could serve as a global recruiting hub and a launching pad for extra-Sahelian attacks.

Indeed, the violence in the Sahel has affected the relationships of all global powers with the region. For its part, Russia has been explicitly involved in the Sahel’s fight against militant groups. The Russia-linked Wagner Group’s brutal assistance to Mali’s counterterrorism efforts has made it an enemy of JNIM; the terrorist group has stated that it seeks reprisals for Wagner’s atrocities, which include the killing of more than 500 Malians in 2022. In the United States, the new National Security Strategy explicitly demands that the United States monitor resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in Africa while avoiding a long-term U.S. presence. As China ramps up its efforts to become a major counterterrorism player in Africa, Beijing is increasingly likely to find itself in the crosshairs of such groups on the continent. In September, JNIM targeted six Chinese firms in Mali in retribution for their cooperation with the Malian junta, kidnapping at least 11 Chinese citizens. France continues to struggle to adjust to the new foreign policy realities of its deep unpopularity in Africa following its legacy of failing to stem Sahelian violence. For other middle-power states, Sahelian violence opens new doors for economic statecraft: States like Turkey and the UAE are responding to the violence by capitalizing on the sale of weapons to governments fighting Sahelian non-state actors.

New Era, New Demands

Some analysts argue that the violence in the Sahel is not new and that, while lamentable, its capacity to impact the U.S. homeland (or that of other major states) is limited. This, at present, seems to be true. However, what is new about the current moment is the never-before-seen depth, breadth, and imbrication of Sahelian violence, coupled with an active U.S. discussion of intervention in at least one theater of it. Never before have so many parts of the region been so widely overrun by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, such that state takeover is a legitimate concern, while threats of U.S. intervention linger in the background. And thus, while Sahelian violence itself will likely remain localized, the second- and third-order impacts of its exponential growth are already creating policy challenges for states that extend far wider than ever before.

If the current super-charged Sahelian jihadist constellation continues its current growth, it may begin targeting global states outside the region. JNIM could hypothetically set its sights on Russians outside the Sahel akin to the Islamic State-Khorasan Province’s attack on Russia’s Crocus Hall in April 2024. For its part, al-Qaeda has long been a critic of China for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims, and China could likewise theoretically face international attacks from Sahelian jihadists. The United States—which has had its citizens kidnapped, soldiers killed, and embassies in the region targeted for attacks—cannot lull itself into believing that an attack launched abroad from the region is impossible. Other terrorist groups have shifted tactics to conduct international attacks in a desire to gain new recruits and demonstrate their strength to existing members. Sahelian jihadists’ increased local control may amplify their ability to train and direct operations far away from their territory.

 Few Good Options

While none of the developments above—military or humanitarian—could or should transform the Sahel into a primary U.S. national security priority (or that of any other major state), the emergence of a new era of jihadism in the Sahel should concern global powers around the world.

How to challenge these groups’ growing reach remains a challenge. First, there is no single group to address; instead, there are multiple members and groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State that, given their existence in the same area of operation, collaborate, flip-flop, and engage with each other and other non-jihadist elements—including criminals, insurgents, and independence movements—when the opportunity arises.

Second, and further complicating the matter, the states most deeply beset by terrorists are ruled by military juntas. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have alienated themselves from regional states in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and international partners, such as France, the United States, the United Nations, and, increasingly, even Russia, such that they now have few true partners beyond each other. The attempted coup in Benin in early December, though thwarted, demonstrates that the club of juntas could expand, and it is the latest case of the Sahel’s ignoble distinction as the locus of coups globally.

Third, even if the operational environment were less fraught, the options to address the spiral are ever more limited. Russia’s slash-and-burn approach to counterterrorism, which has increased fragmentation within the Malian armed forces and fed into jihadist recruitment, has been even less effective than the more measured, but still insufficient, approaches taken by the United States and France over the past decade. While China seeks to enter the African counterterrorism fray and Turkey provides some assistance, neither state’s efforts rise to the level of fundamentally altering an intractable situation. International fora like the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh offer a laudable convening forum but have proved to be far more successful at articulating that threats exist in Africa than they have been at actually coordinating action to address them. The sidelining of the Global Fragility Act—a strategy for integrated, regional support for conflict-affected states—shows that previous promising efforts have not been sustained.

No single powerful country in Africa or outside it can defeat the intertwined threats of Sahelian violence, and it is increasingly evident that none is foolish enough to try to do so alone.

In this vacuum, a seemingly taboo option is worth reconsidering: a multinational mission with the United Nations. The Malian junta’s ouster of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in June 2023 has rightfully led most observers to consider the possibility of future UN engagement foreclosed. (The junta questioned MINUSMA’s effectiveness in improving security and claimed it should have undertaken offensive operations. Meanwhile, MINUSMA’s former head, El-Ghassim Wane, pointed to the constraints imposed on the mission, including a lack of freedom of movement and disinformation.) Nevertheless, past failures do not preclude new initiatives, provided they adapt and have regional support.

The UN Security Council’s authorization of the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti is a case in point. In that instance, the region is behind the force, and the United States not only supported, but co-led the UN Security Council’s action with Panama. Full international support is not guaranteed, as Russia and China abstained, and the effectiveness of the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti remains to be seen. But the authorization gives reason to believe that in today’s geopolitical landscape, there is still room to develop a mix of new and old options for the Sahel.

While many steps would be needed to bridge the tensions between the junta club and its neighbors, a rapprochement would lay the foundation for a regional force with multinational backing. The African Union appointed an envoy to the Sahel in July to facilitate regional dialogue, though no results have been observed, yet. The new multinational mission should be focused on regional security, including coordinated border patrols, which was one of 30 potential mandate options identified by the 2024 Future of Peacekeeping study. Its mandate should strike a balance between offensive operations and human rights guardrails, and in this regard, it should learn from whether the new force for Haiti is successful under the heading of conducting “intelligence-led, targeted operations.” The size of a new mission for the Sahel would likely range between the 5,000-strong ECOWAS standby force and the 15,000-person size of the previous MINUSMA mission.

While the United States and other global states have historically had the luxury of ignoring Sahelian violence, the situation today requires action. Although good options are few and difficult to implement, the most foolish approach would be to rely on outdated assumptions that the region and its terrorist threats can be ignored.