# Sahel Insurgency
> A decade-long jihadist insurgency across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, now accounting for over half of global terrorism deaths and displacing millions.

**Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads:  · 4 takes · 4 lenses · 2 regions

## What it is

The Sahel insurgency is an armed conflict that has run for more than a decade across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in the central Sahel. Two jihadist coalitions drive the violence. Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), al-Qaeda's Sahel franchise formed in 2017 by merging Ansar Dine, the Macina Liberation Front, and al-Mourabitoun, commands an estimated 6,000 fighters and runs administrative structures in the territory it controls. The Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which emerged in 2016, focuses mainly on Niger's Tillabéri region and the tri-border Liptako-Gourma area, competing with JNIM for recruits and territory. The Sahel accounted for 51% of global terrorism deaths in 2024, according to the CFR. As of mid-2026, none of the three governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has reversed the insurgents' territorial gains.

## History

Violence traces to 2012, when a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali and a coup in Bamako created a power vacuum that Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb rapidly filled. France launched Operation Serval in January 2013 and drove armed groups from northern Malian cities within weeks, then replaced it with the broader Operation Barkhane in 2014, a 5,000-troop regional counterterrorism force. JNIM formed in March 2017 under the al-Qaeda umbrella, giving the network organisational coherence across borders.

Coups in Mali in August 2020 and May 2021, and in Burkina Faso in January and September 2022, brought military juntas to power that expelled French forces and invited Russia's Wagner Group, later rebranded as Africa Corps after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 2023. Mali expelled the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA in June 2023 after a decade that had not halted insurgent expansion. Niger's military seized power in July 2023, completing the bloc. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger announced the Alliance of Sahel States in July 2024 and left the G5 Sahel regional security framework.

## Current state

Burkina Faso's junta controls roughly 40% of its territory as of mid-2026. JNIM's [fuel siege of Bamako](/ja/n/mali-jnim-bamako-blockade-2026), running through late 2025 and into 2026, burned more than 300 fuel tankers along National Road 1 and drove reported petrol prices up 400% in the Malian capital. JNIM's drone use, fewer than 10 recorded strikes in 2024, rose to approximately 80 in 2025. In June 2026, JNIM struck [Niamey's airport](/ja/n/jnim-niamey-airport-attack-2026) in Niger. Human Rights Watch documented serious abuses in [Mali](/ja/n/mali-hrw-abuses-jun28) by both JNIM fighters and Malian military units operating alongside Africa Corps personnel.

On the diplomatic front: France was expelled from [Burkina Faso](/ja/n/burkina-faso-france-expulsion-jun29), Air France suspended Mali routes [in June 2026](/ja/n/air-france-mali-closure-jun18), and Niger withdrew from the International Criminal Court [in early 2026](/ja/n/niger-sahel-icc-withdrawal-2026). The AES governments are building a [confederation parliament](/ja/n/aes-confederation-parliament-jun30) as a political counterpart to the security bloc. Humanitarian need is acute: 10.4 million people require assistance across the central Sahel at an estimated cost of US$2.3 billion, with only 8% funded as of mid-2025.

## Relationships

The three AES juntas, Mali's Assimi Goïta, Burkina Faso's Ibrahim Traoré, and Niger's Abdourahamane Tchiani, have aligned with Russia and distanced from France, the US, and ECOWAS. Africa Corps provides security assistance to Mali and is expanding in Burkina Faso, yet JNIM actively targets AES military forces regardless, making the Russian partnership no substitute for territorial control. ISSP competes with JNIM across the tri-border area, occasionally generating inter-jihadist clashes. Coastal West Africa, including Benin, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, and Ghana, faces mounting insurgent pressure along northern borders as JNIM expands southward toward wealthier economies and larger populations.

## What to watch

Whether JNIM can convert road blockades into sustained control over capital supply lines is the near-term test of AES state viability. The confederation parliament's governance structure will determine how much authority the AES can project beyond Bamako, Ouagadougou, and Niamey. Accountability for documented atrocities, stalled since MINUSMA's exit, faces a further setback with Niger's ICC withdrawal. JNIM's drone capacity is the most significant tactical shift of the past two years; coastal states with less-hardened infrastructure are the most exposed as the group pushes south. The humanitarian funding gap, 92% unfunded as of mid-2025, risks compounding displacement into broader regional instability.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### conflict data record
- **ACLED, Conflict in the Sahel** (Global, en) — Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project's regional tracker covering Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger; the primary event-level dataset underlying casualty counts, territorial-control estimates, and armed-group activity maps.
  Source: https://acleddata.com/region/conflict-sahel

### policy overview
- **Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker** (US, en) — CFR's continuously updated Sahel conflict profile, citing that the region accounted for 51% of global terrorism deaths in 2024, and tracking JNIM, ISSP, and the sequential withdrawal of French and UN forces.
  Source: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violent-extremism-sahel

### official record
- **UNHCR, Sahel Emergency** (Global, en) — UN refugee agency emergency page tracking forced displacement, projecting 5.6 million forcibly displaced and stateless people across the Sahel Plus region by end of 2026, up from 4 million.
  Source: https://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/sahel-emergency

### thematic report
- **ACLED, Jihadist Groups Pose a Growing and Expanding Threat in Africa** (Global, en) — ACLED thematic report documenting JNIM's drone escalation from fewer than 10 recorded strikes in 2024 to approximately 80 in 2025, and the group's growing administrative presence in areas it controls across Mali and Burkina Faso.
  Source: https://acleddata.com/report/jihadist-groups-pose-growing-and-expanding-threat-africa

## Across the graph
- Related: [[mali-jnim-bamako-blockade-2026]], [[jnim-niamey-airport-attack-2026]], [[aes-confederation-parliament-jun30]], [[mali-hrw-abuses-jun28]], [[niger-sahel-icc-withdrawal-2026]], [[burkina-faso-france-expulsion-jun29]]
- Entities: Sahel Insurgency, Jnim, Al Qaeda, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger

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Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/ja/n/sahel-insurgency-dossier