Key statistics from 2025

From January 1 to November 28, 2025:

• More than 10,000 fatalities resulted from political violence in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
• Militants abducted 30 foreign nationals, primarily in Mali (22) and Niger (8).
• Benin recorded a nearly 70% increase in fatalities compared to the same period in 2024.

In 2025, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) intensified their offensives across the central Sahel, posing severe threats to military-led governments in the region. These groups have not only deepened their influence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger but have also extended their operations into the border regions of Benin, Niger, and Nigeria.

Economic warfare has emerged as a central tactic employed by these militant organizations to cripple state functions and apply pressure on regional governments. In Mali, JNIM implemented a sweeping fuel and transport embargo targeting cities such as Kayes and Nioro du Sahel as part of coordinated attacks across Kayes, Sikasso, Koulikoro, Segou, and Mopti. This blockade disrupted critical trade and transport arteries linking Bamako to surrounding regions, triggering fuel shortages and nationwide price surges. The embargo was designed to paralyze Mali’s economy, undermine state legitimacy, and destabilize the military regime. The consequences of JNIM’s actions, compounded by military counter-offensives, led to unprecedented spikes in violence in Kayes, Sikasso, and Segou—levels not seen since ACLED began tracking data in 1997.

In Burkina Faso, JNIM maintained relentless pressure on both the military and the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP). In May, the group briefly seized control of the provincial capitals of Djibo and Diapaga in rapid succession, signaling a significant leap in its operational capabilities. In September, JNIM executed a devastating ambush on a military convoy near Koubel-Alpha in Soum Province, resulting in approximately 90 soldier fatalities—one of the deadliest attacks on Burkina Faso’s armed forces to date. These offensives in Mali and Burkina Faso underscore JNIM’s growing military strength and its intent to destabilize military regimes by eroding state authority, territorial control, and economic stability.

While Niger has not experienced the same intensity of violence as its neighbors, it remains increasingly vulnerable to militant activities. Militant influence has spread beyond traditional hotspots into the southern Dosso and northern Agadez regions. Like JNIM, ISSP has waged its own form of economic warfare, intensifying attacks on the Benin-Niger oil pipeline in the Dosso and Tahoua regions along the Nigerian border. The abduction of an American citizen in Niamey on October 21 highlights the country’s growing fragility and demonstrates that militant operations now extend into urban centers previously considered secure.

Both JNIM and ISSP have launched kidnapping campaigns targeting foreigners, contributing to record-breaking abduction rates in Mali and Niger. JNIM primarily focused on foreign workers as part of its economic warfare strategy, targeting industrial facilities, mining operations, and transit corridors. ISSP, by contrast, adopted a broader approach, abducting both Western nationals and foreign laborers, with most incidents occurring in Niger. ACLED data also records additional kidnappings in border areas of Burkina Faso and Algeria. ISSP’s operations mark a shift toward high-value Western hostages, often outsourcing abductions to criminal networks.

Militant expansion into coastal West Africa poses new challenges for regional stability in 2026

A defining development for 2026 is the consolidation of a new conflict frontline in the Benin, Niger, and Nigeria borderlands, a region now pivotal for both Sahelian and Nigerian militant factions.

Throughout 2025, JNIM and ISSP solidified their presence in this tri-border zone, transforming it into a critical conflict zone with implications for both the Sahel and coastal West Africa. Northern Benin experienced its deadliest year on record as JNIM intensified cross-border operations from eastern Burkina Faso in April, culminating in the deaths of over 50 soldiers in Park W. By midyear, the group had advanced further south into the Borgou department, along the Nigerian border, signaling a strategic southward expansion beyond its traditional northern strongholds of Atacora and Alibori. JNIM also claimed its first attack in Nigeria in late October.

Meanwhile, ISSP reinforced its foothold in southwestern Niger, moving closer to the city of Gaya on the Benin border, while continuing operations in Nigeria’s Sokoto and Kebbi states. In the Niger-Nigeria border areas, the group targeted villages, security outposts, and military patrols, and sabotaged critical infrastructure. Both Sahelian factions have now established themselves in northwestern and western Nigeria.

The growing overlap between Sahelian and Nigerian militants represents a turning point, as the previously distinct Sahelian and Nigerian conflict zones merge into a single, interconnected battleground stretching from Mali to western Nigeria. In 2026, this subregion is poised to become a major flashpoint for militant competition. Groups such as JNIM, ISSP, Ansaru, Mahmuda, Islamic State West Africa Province factions, and bandit groups are increasingly overlapping in these borderlands. As their operational zones expand into shared territories, interactions among these factions are likely to intensify, leading to evolving violence dynamics and new conflict patterns across the region.

While this tri-border expansion reshapes the southern frontline of the Sahel conflict, military regimes in the central Sahel face mounting internal and external pressures. In Mali and Burkina Faso, JNIM’s sustained offensives, blockades, and sieges have weakened state control and exposed deep structural vulnerabilities. In Mali, the fuel and transport embargo continues to cripple the economy and restrict the movement of goods and people, deepening civilian hardship and eroding regime legitimacy. Prolonged disruption risks exacerbating divisions within the armed forces and triggering unrest that the junta may struggle to control.

Burkina Faso faces similar challenges. Years of sustained pressure have left the army and VDP overstretched. JNIM’s ability to temporarily seize major towns not only reflects the group’s strategic and tactical evolution but also its potential to threaten regional capitals like Fada N’Gourma in the east, given the state’s inability to defend provincial and departmental centers effectively. Continued heavy military losses and territorial retreat could spark the same internal dissent and coup pressures that have toppled previous governments.

Across the central Sahel, state authority is steadily eroding despite junta promises to restore security. JNIM and ISSP now contest sovereignty over vast rural territories, where they impose their own social and economic order, tax local populations, and regulate access to livelihoods. Their influence is increasingly encroaching on major urban centers once considered insulated from militant activity. ISSP’s incursions into Ayorou and Tillaberi, along with operations in Niamey, demonstrate that no urban area is beyond militant reach.

Local self-defense groups, crucial to state counter-insurgency efforts in rural areas, are under unprecedented strain. In Mali, many Dozo militias have been disarmed or forced into agreements with JNIM, leaving communities dependent on militant-imposed arrangements for basic security and economic access. In Burkina Faso, the VDP—once central to Traoré’s mobilization strategy—has suffered heavy losses and remains largely defensive, limiting the state’s ability to hold or reclaim territory. As these groups weaken, militants are likely to expand their authority further.

Russia’s military partnership with Sahelian states has delivered limited results. The transition from the Wagner Group to the Africa Corps left large areas vulnerable, as the Africa Corps operates with a narrower scope and has been unable to prevent militant advances. However, toward the end of 2025, the Africa Corps shifted its focus to securing fuel convoys and key supply routes in southern Mali, where JNIM’s embargo was beginning to lose momentum. This military partnership is expected to remain vital in 2026, with Africa Corps providing essential logistical and aerial support to help the junta maintain control over major transit routes and urban centers, even as broader security challenges persist.

The combination of sustained militant pressure, weakened militias, and declining state capacity and legitimacy heightens the risk of political destabilization in the central Sahel. If either the Malian or Burkinabe military regimes succumb to internal divisions or popular unrest, a regional domino effect could unfold, placing neighboring governments in increasingly precarious positions. If current trends continue, 2026 may bring deeper political instability and territorial fragmentation across the central Sahel and along its southern borders.

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