THE SAHEL Terrorism in the Sahel: Why Military Solutions Keep Falling Short. Governance Failures, Local Grievances, Poverty, Borders, Organized Crime and Ideological Extremism

 

THE SAHEL

Terrorism in the Sahel: Why Military Solutions Keep Falling Short

Governance Failures, Local Grievances, Poverty, Borders, Organized Crime and Ideological Extremism

For more than a decade, governments and foreign partners have repeatedly tried to defeat terrorism in the Sahel through military force.

France deployed thousands of troops.

The United States built surveillance and drone capabilities.

United Nations peacekeepers operated across Mali.

European countries trained regional armies.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger expanded their armed forces, mobilized civilian auxiliaries and, after breaking with many Western partners, strengthened military cooperation with Russia.

The three countries have also created the Alliance of Sahel States, or AES, and are developing a joint military force.

Yet the insurgency has not disappeared.

It has expanded.

The Global Terrorism Index 2026 reports that terrorism deaths and attacks in the Sahel have increased roughly tenfold since 2009 and that the region accounted for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide in 2025.

The central question is therefore unavoidable:

Why have years of military campaigns failed to produce lasting security?

The answer is not that military force is irrelevant.

Governments must defend towns, protect civilians, secure roads, disrupt terrorist networks and prevent armed organisations from capturing territory. No serious counterterrorism strategy can simply abandon the military dimension.

But the Sahel demonstrates the limits of believing that terrorism is principally a battlefield problem.

The conflict is simultaneously about political legitimacy, neglected communities, economic survival, ethnic tensions, criminal economies, inaccessible borders, state abuses and competing visions of social order.

Military force can kill fighters.

It cannot by itself eliminate the conditions that continually produce new ones.

1. The Sahel Is Facing an Insurgency, Not Just Terrorist Attacks

The first conceptual mistake is treating terrorism in the Sahel simply as a series of isolated bombings or attacks.

The principal jihadist organisations increasingly behave like insurgent movements.

The most important are:

Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin — JNIM

JNIM is affiliated with al-Qaeda and has become a powerful network operating principally across Mali and Burkina Faso while expanding into Niger and coastal West African states.

Islamic State Sahel Province — ISSP

ISSP is affiliated with the Islamic State movement and is particularly influential across portions of the Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso borderlands.

These organisations do more than attack soldiers.

They attempt to influence or control:

roads,

villages,

markets,

livestock routes,

mining areas,

taxation,

local justice,

and cross-border commerce.

ACLED describes JNIM and ISSP as serious threats to state authority across the Central Sahel, with JNIM conducting a broad multi-front campaign and ISSP consolidating influence particularly in Niger.

That changes the nature of the problem.

A government facing terrorists can pursue individual attackers.

A government facing an insurgency must compete over who governs society.

2. Governance Failure Creates the Space Militants Exploit

The most important battlefield in the Sahel may not be military.

It may be the relationship between citizens and the state.

Across remote regions of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, governments have historically struggled to provide:

schools,

health clinics,

roads,

courts,

policing,

employment,

land administration,

and reliable security.

The geographical challenge is enormous.

Niger and Mali possess vast territories with extremely low population density. Providing public services across deserts and isolated rural communities is expensive and administratively difficult.

But geography alone cannot explain the crisis.

The deeper problem is that communities in peripheral regions have often felt politically neglected.

UNDP's 2025 work on governance in the Sahel identifies governance deficits and declining public trust as central factors behind insecurity, criminality, extremism and political instability.

Where citizens do not see the state as legitimate, extremists can exploit the vacuum.

They may establish informal courts.

They may regulate livestock disputes.

They may collect taxes.

They may punish thieves.

They may control commercial routes.

These systems can be coercive and brutal.

But in areas where official courts barely function, even an extremist justice system can become part of everyday governance.

That is how insurgencies become entrenched.

3. Local Grievances Matter as Much as Global Ideology

Not every person who joins a jihadist organisation begins as an ideological extremist.

This distinction is critical.

UNDP's major Journey to Extremism in Africa study drew on almost 2,200 respondents, including former members of violent extremist organisations, across countries including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The broader research shows that recruitment frequently occurs through a mixture of:

personal grievances,

anger toward authorities,

economic incentives,

family or friendship networks,

protection needs,

community conflicts,

and ideological beliefs.

Earlier UNDP research found high levels of distrust in governments and law-enforcement institutions among voluntary recruits and noted that many recruits came from borderland or peripheral communities lacking basic services.

This means someone may enter an extremist movement because:

a relative was killed;

security forces abused the community;

livestock was stolen;

a land dispute was never resolved;

employment opportunities disappeared;

a rival community received government protection;

or militants offered money and protection.

Ideology can then transform those grievances into a larger political narrative.

That does not diminish the importance of jihadist ideology.

It explains why ideology can become persuasive.

4. Poverty Is a Vulnerability—Not a Simple Cause of Terrorism

It would be misleading to say:

Poor people become terrorists.

Millions of poor Sahelians reject terrorism completely.

Poverty alone therefore cannot explain extremist recruitment.

But chronic economic insecurity increases vulnerability.

The World Bank estimates that more than 40% of the population across the wider Sahel lives below the poverty line, with communities facing rapid demographic growth, low human capital, food insecurity and repeated climatic and economic shocks.

Niger illustrates the scale of the problem.

More than 10 million people—about 45% of the population—were living in extreme poverty in 2024, according to the World Bank.

For a young man in a remote community, the legitimate economy may offer extremely limited options.

There may be no salaried employment.

Agriculture may depend on unreliable rainfall.

Formal banking may be inaccessible.

Schools may be distant.

Government employment may seem available only through connections.

Migration may appear risky.

Meanwhile armed organisations can offer:

money,

motorcycles,

weapons,

status,

belonging,

protection,

or access to illicit economic networks.

Again, poverty does not automatically create terrorists.

But an economy that provides young people with almost no credible future creates a recruitment environment that extremists can exploit.

5. Borders Are Central to the Conflict

Modern borders across the Sahel stretch across enormous distances.

But many border communities existed long before those borders were drawn.

Ethnic groups, pastoral communities and trading networks frequently extend across several countries.

Militants exploit precisely this environment.

They can operate in Mali, cross into Burkina Faso, retreat toward Niger and move through isolated regions where government surveillance is limited.

The terrorism-border relationship is a worldwide pattern.

The Global Terrorism Index reports that more than 76% of terrorist attacks in 2025 occurred within 100 kilometres of an international border, up from under 60% in 2007.

The Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger frontier provides almost ideal insurgent geography.

If one country's army applies pressure, fighters can move across another frontier.

If military forces concentrate on cities, militants can return to rural zones.

If official border crossings become more controlled, informal tracks remain.

This is why three separate national counterterrorism strategies will always struggle against a single transnational insurgent ecosystem.

6. Organized Crime Keeps the War Economically Alive

Insurgencies need money.

The Sahel contains numerous illicit economies capable of producing it.

UNODC identifies criminal markets involving:

gold,

fuel,

firearms,

drugs,

migrant smuggling,

and other commodities across the region.

This does not mean jihadists control every criminal network.

Relationships between extremist organisations, traffickers, local traders, corrupt officials and armed groups vary considerably.

Sometimes they cooperate.

Sometimes they tax each other.

Sometimes they compete.

But criminal economies allow armed organisations to survive without depending entirely on donations from foreign jihadist movements.

Consider gold.

Artisanal mining occurs across remote parts of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Militants may impose taxes on miners, transporters or traders.

Consider livestock.

Armed groups can steal cattle and resell them through informal markets.

Consider fuel.

Smuggled fuel is essential for motorcycles and vehicles used by insurgents.

Consider kidnapping.

Hostages can generate enormous revenue.

A UN assessment reported by Reuters in August 2026 concluded that a roughly $50 million hostage ransom paid in late 2025 helped finance a major JNIM offensive, demonstrating how kidnapping can provide militant organisations with strategic-scale resources.

This transforms counterterrorism into an economic problem.

Destroying one militant camp does little if the financing network remains intact.

7. State Violence Can Become a Recruitment Tool

Perhaps the most dangerous counterterrorism failure occurs when security forces themselves generate grievances.

Governments understandably face enormous pressure.

Soldiers operate in environments where militants blend into civilian populations.

Intelligence is imperfect.

Ambushes are frequent.

Improvised explosive devices create constant fear.

But indiscriminate retaliation can be strategically disastrous.

Reuters reported in April 2026, using ACLED figures and Human Rights Watch research, that government and allied forces in both Burkina Faso and Mali had been responsible for more civilian killings than jihadist groups during recent periods. In Mali, ACLED attributed 918 civilian deaths in 2025 to the military and Russian-aligned forces, compared with 232 attributed to JNIM and ISSP; in Burkina Faso, state forces and allied militias were also responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths.

Such numbers should be interpreted cautiously because conflict-zone casualty recording is inherently incomplete.

But the strategic lesson is clear.

When a soldier who is supposed to protect a village becomes the source of fear, the state loses legitimacy.

Communities become less willing to provide intelligence.

Militants then tell residents:

The government considers you the enemy. We will protect you.

That propaganda becomes far more effective after real abuses.

Human Rights Watch researchers explicitly warn that such conduct can fuel grievances and extremist recruitment.

A counterterrorism campaign can therefore produce the very recruits it is trying to eliminate.

8. Ethnic Identity Can Become Militarized

The Sahel conflict must not be reduced to ethnicity.

JNIM and ISSP are ideological organisations with members from numerous communities.

Nevertheless, ethnic tensions have become intertwined with the conflict.

Fulani pastoral communities have been particularly vulnerable to suspicion because some jihadist networks have recruited Fulani fighters.

The danger arises when governments or local militias begin treating entire communities as potential collaborators.

Collective punishment can push neutral civilians toward militants.

Meanwhile extremist organisations deliberately exploit these tensions.

They present themselves as defenders of communities facing abuse from rival ethnic militias or government forces.

The result becomes a vicious cycle:

militant recruitment → government suspicion → communal abuse → resentment → further militant recruitment.

Breaking that cycle requires far more than firepower.

It requires local reconciliation, credible policing and impartial justice.

9. Climate Stress Intensifies Existing Conflict

Climate change does not automatically create terrorism either.

But it amplifies existing pressures.

Farmers need land.

Pastoralists need grazing routes.

Communities need water.

Growing populations increase demand.

Drought, irregular rainfall and flooding make already scarce resources less predictable.

The World Bank reports that Sahelian poverty is repeatedly intensified by climate, food-price and conflict shocks.

In Burkina Faso, roughly half of rural residents experienced drought or irregular rainfall during the three years preceding the World Bank's 2026 update, while around three million people were food insecure during the 2024 lean season.

When a traditional dispute over water or grazing becomes violent, jihadists may intervene.

They can offer protection to one side.

They can impose their own settlement.

They can recruit from those who believe the state has abandoned them.

Environmental stress therefore becomes a security issue through politics.

CASE STUDY 1: MALI

Where the Regional Crisis Began

The modern Central Sahel insurgency traces much of its current trajectory to Mali's 2012 crisis.

A Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali coincided with the rise of jihadist organisations that captured major northern cities.

France intervened through Operation Serval in 2013 and rapidly pushed militants out of major urban centres.

But the conflict did not disappear.

It changed form.

Militants abandoned many conventional territorial positions and adapted through:

IED attacks,

ambushes,

assassinations,

rural infiltration,

local alliances,

and community recruitment.

The conflict then expanded into central Mali.

Why?

Because military operations had addressed the immediate battlefield threat without resolving deeper political problems.

These included:

weak state institutions;

northern political grievances;

disputes over local power;

farmer-pastoralist tensions;

corruption;

poor justice systems;

and distrust of security forces.

Foreign involvement became enormous.

France fought through Serval and Barkhane.

The UN deployed MINUSMA.

European forces trained Malian personnel.

Eventually Mali's military government expelled many Western partners and moved closer to Russia.

Yet the strategic problem persisted.

By 2025, JNIM was capable of imposing a fuel blockade that severely disrupted Bamako by attacking transportation routes, demonstrating that insurgents did not need to capture the capital to pressure the state.

In April 2026, major attacks by jihadist and separatist forces again demonstrated their capacity for coordinated operations across Mali.

Mali's lesson

The country has repeatedly changed its external military partners.

But the conflict has survived every change.

This strongly suggests that the underlying problem is larger than the identity of the foreign security partner.

CASE STUDY 2: BURKINA FASO

From Relative Stability to Epicentre of Violence

Burkina Faso once appeared comparatively insulated from the worst of the Mali conflict.

That changed dramatically after 2015.

Militant organisations expanded across northern and eastern Burkina Faso and eventually penetrated large areas of the country.

Thousands were killed.

Millions were displaced.

The deteriorating security environment contributed directly to military coups in 2022.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré's government subsequently adopted an aggressive strategy centred on mobilising the population and expanding the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland—VDP.

This model has created additional manpower and helped the government contest some territories.

But it carries significant risks.

Rapidly mobilised local auxiliaries may possess intimate knowledge of communities, but local rivalries can also enter military operations.

If weapons are distributed within communities divided by ethnic, political or economic disputes, counterterrorism can become entangled with revenge.

Burkina Faso continues to experience large-scale jihadist offensives. ACLED recorded more than 30 JNIM attacks during one February 2026 campaign alone, with significant losses among soldiers, forest guards and VDP personnel.

Burkina Faso's lesson

Mass mobilisation can increase battlefield capacity.

But expanding the number of armed actors without equally strengthening discipline, intelligence, justice and accountability can create additional insecurity.

CASE STUDY 3: NIGER

The Borderland Problem

Niger demonstrates perhaps most clearly how geography undermines conventional counterterrorism.

The country faces multiple security fronts.

In the west, jihadist networks operate across the borders connecting Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

In the southeast, Niger must also contend with the wider Lake Chad and Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province security environment.

The western Tillabéri region has become especially dangerous.

ACLED reported that Tillabéri was the deadliest region in the entire Central Sahel in 2025, recording more than 1,200 fatalities, with particularly severe civilian targeting.

By mid-2026, both JNIM and ISSP were carrying out increasingly sophisticated campaigns there.

In June, militants attacked military positions at In-Ates and Banibangou, while JNIM later claimed an attack on the airport and military airbase in Niamey.

That is significant.

The threat is no longer restricted to distant frontier communities.

Militant organisations are increasingly demonstrating that they can threaten strategically important installations near national capitals.

Niger's lesson

A state cannot secure vast borderlands simply by stationing more soldiers at isolated military bases.

It requires local intelligence networks, cross-border cooperation and trusted relationships with communities living along the frontier.

10. Ideology Still Matters

There is a danger in emphasizing grievances so heavily that jihadist ideology disappears from the analysis.

That would be another mistake.

JNIM and ISSP are not merely criminal organisations responding to unemployment.

They possess ideological objectives.

They seek to replace existing political systems with forms of governance based on their interpretations of Islamic law.

They reject many existing African state institutions.

They connect themselves ideologically to transnational jihadist organisations.

Their propaganda presents the conflict as part of a larger religious and political struggle.

Ideology provides something material grievances alone cannot:

a narrative explaining why suffering exists and what political order should replace the current system.

An unemployed person does not automatically become a jihadist.

But unemployment combined with humiliation, insecurity and political alienation can create an audience for an ideology promising:

justice,

identity,

purpose,

belonging,

revenge,

and a supposedly morally superior political order.

Successful prevention must therefore challenge both the grievances and the ideological interpretation placed upon them.

11. Why Killing Leaders Does Not End the Movement

Counterterrorism strategies frequently emphasize eliminating commanders.

Sometimes this works.

Leadership losses can disrupt planning and communications.

But decentralised insurgencies can replace individuals.

A militant leader is far easier to replace than the social conditions that generated the movement.

If a commander is killed but:

the border remains uncontrolled,

villagers still distrust the government,

young people remain unemployed,

local disputes remain unresolved,

criminal networks continue operating,

and civilians continue suffering abuses,

another commander can emerge.

Tactical victories therefore fail to accumulate into strategic victory.

12. Why Foreign Military Interventions Also Struggled

France discovered this problem.

So did UN peacekeepers.

Western military assistance helped eliminate militants, collect intelligence and prevent the collapse of governments.

But external militaries cannot manufacture political legitimacy.

They also create dependency.

When national armies rely heavily on foreign:

air power,

surveillance,

training,

intelligence,

logistics,

and special forces,

the state may never develop sufficient independent capability.

Worse, a long foreign presence can itself become politically controversial.

France eventually became part of the grievance narrative.

Now Russia faces the same structural danger.

If Russian personnel remain for years while insecurity persists, Moscow could eventually confront the same question once asked about Paris:

Why are foreign soldiers still here if terrorism continues to spread?

13. Military Coups Did Not Solve the Security Crisis

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger's military governments all justified their seizures of power partly by arguing that previous civilian governments had failed to provide security.

Yet militant violence remains severe.

ACLED stated in July 2026 that jihadist insurgencies were making major gains while increasingly threatening transportation corridors, infrastructure and population centres across all three countries.

This does not mean military governments are necessarily incapable of eventually improving security.

But it does demonstrate that military leadership itself is not a counterterrorism strategy.

Soldiers can administer a government.

That does not automatically repair:

courts,

schools,

local administrations,

economic policy,

anti-corruption institutions,

or community reconciliation.

And those institutions ultimately matter to counterinsurgency.

14. The Conflict Is Becoming Self-Sustaining

This may be the most dangerous development.

War itself increasingly generates the conditions for more war.

Terrorism causes displacement.

Displacement destroys livelihoods.

Destroyed livelihoods increase poverty.

Poverty pushes people toward informal economies.

Informal economies interact with smuggling.

Smuggling finances armed actors.

Military retaliation creates grievances.

Grievances facilitate recruitment.

Recruitment creates more terrorism.

The humanitarian consequences are enormous.

UNHCR reported that 4.7 million people were forcibly displaced across the wider Sahel+ region by the end of 2024, including almost three million internally displaced people, while insecurity prevented one out of every two children surveyed in the Central Sahel from attending school.

A child who spends years outside school because of conflict becomes part of another long-term security challenge.

The effects of today's insurgency may therefore continue for decades.

15. What Would a More Effective Strategy Look Like?

The answer is not abandoning military force.

It is putting military force inside a broader political strategy.

Secure civilians, not simply territory

The ultimate measure of counterterrorism should not be the number of militants killed.

It should be whether civilians can:

travel safely,

farm safely,

attend markets,

send children to school,

and trust local authorities.

Professionalize security forces

Armies and civilian auxiliaries require discipline, training and accountability.

Civilian abuse must be investigated.

An army cannot sustainably defeat an insurgency while alienating the population whose intelligence it needs.

Restore local government immediately after military operations

Retaking a village is only the first step.

Government administrators, teachers, medical workers, police and judges must follow.

Otherwise militants return after the army leaves.

Invest heavily in border communities

Peripheral regions should stop being treated as distant security zones.

They need roads, telecommunications, schools, livestock services, markets and political representation.

Resolve land and pastoral disputes

Local mediation can sometimes prevent conflicts from becoming recruitment opportunities for extremist organisations.

Attack terrorist finance

Governments need financial intelligence alongside military intelligence.

Gold networks, kidnapping, livestock theft, smuggling, illegal taxation and arms trafficking must become central targets.

Create economic alternatives

Young people need viable legal livelihoods.

Jobs programmes alone will not defeat jihadism.

But no counterterrorism strategy can succeed indefinitely in communities where joining an armed organisation is among the few available routes to income and status.

Strengthen ideological resilience

Religious scholars, community leaders, teachers and former extremists can challenge jihadist propaganda far more credibly than military spokespeople.

Improve AES cooperation

Because the insurgency is transnational, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger need intelligence sharing, coordinated border operations, compatible communications and common pursuit arrangements.

But military integration should be accompanied by economic and governance integration.

16. The Most Important Shift: From Counterterrorism to State-Building

Ultimately, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are fighting for something larger than control of territory.

They are fighting over the meaning and presence of the state.

Who provides security?

Who delivers justice?

Who taxes economic activity?

Who regulates markets?

Who controls roads?

Who resolves disputes?

Who gives young people hope?

Who commands legitimate authority?

If governments cannot answer these questions, jihadist organisations will continue trying to answer them instead.

That is why the Sahel conflict cannot be won purely through firepower.

Armies Can Suppress Terrorism—Only Legitimate States Can Defeat an Insurgency

The failure of military solutions in the Sahel does not prove that soldiers are unnecessary.

It proves that soldiers are insufficient.

Mali has experienced French intervention, UN peacekeeping, European training, national military campaigns and Russian-supported operations.

Burkina Faso has dramatically expanded its armed forces and civilian mobilisation.

Niger has hosted French, American and now Russian security partnerships while increasing regional military cooperation.

Yet extremist organisations continue adapting.

Why?

Because terrorism in the Sahel feeds upon an interconnected ecosystem of:

weak governance,

local grievance,

poverty and economic exclusion,

porous borders,

organized crime,

communal conflict,

state abuses,

and ideological extremism.

Destroy one component and the others can continue sustaining the insurgency.

The real strategic objective must therefore shift from:

How many terrorists can the military eliminate?

to:

How can the state make terrorism socially, politically and economically unsustainable?

That requires competent armies.

But it also requires functioning courts.

Trusted police.

Schools.

Jobs.

Roads.

Fair political representation.

Economic opportunity.

Border cooperation.

Community reconciliation.

And governments citizens believe are worth defending.

The Sahel's experience offers a wider lesson for counterterrorism around the world:

A government can control a battlefield without controlling the political conditions that produced the war.

And when those conditions remain unchanged, today's defeated insurgents are often replaced by tomorrow's recruits.

For Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, therefore, the decisive struggle will not simply be over who possesses the strongest military.

It will be over who can build the most legitimate state.

That is the battlefield on which the future of the Sahel will ultimately be decided.

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