A UN assessment finds armed groups in the Sahel are no longer just launching attacks: they administer territory, control trade routes, exploit new technologies, and are extending their reach toward coastal West African states
The national assembly presidents of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger met on June 29 to advance the legislative architecture of the Alliance of Sahel States confederation, adopting a joint motion of support for Burkina Faso against a European Parliament human rights resolution
A decade-long jihadist insurgency across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, now accounting for over half of global terrorism deaths and displacing millions.
The arc of West and Central African states where military juntas displaced elected governments nine times since 2020, reshaping the Sahel's security and great-power alignments.
An al-Qaeda raid on Diori Hamani International, Niger's air-force base and drone fleet, killed 11 soldiers and 2 civilians, the second strike on the airport this year as Sahel jihadists move on cities
Al-Qaeda's Sahel coalition taxes and attacks gold sites to fund ~6,000 fighters; Niger kills 13 in mine raids aimed at drying up financing
A ceremony in Aoulef, Algeria on June 4 marked full construction commencement on the 4,128-kilometre pipeline; at $13 billion and 30 billion cubic metres per year of planned capacity, it is the largest gas infrastructure project in Africa in a generation
Niger's CNSP cabinet revoked Orano's Arlit uranium concession on May 18, 2026, after revoking its Imouraren licence in 2024; output has fallen from ~3,000 metric tons in 2020 to an estimated 1,800 metric tons as Niger lacks independent refining capacity and Russia's Rosatom and China have not moved to fill the gap