Burkina Faso 2026 — 46 dead in the war between the EIS and the JNIM

In the east of the Oudalan province, in northeastern Burkina Faso, the jihadists are no longer content with fighting the army. On November 9, clashes between the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State in the Sahel (EIS) reportedly killed 46 JNIM fighters, according to the Critical Threats Project. This toll remains preliminary, but it marks the deadliest inter-jihadist combat observed since July 2023.

The figure should be treated with caution. Both organizations publish propaganda tolls, Burkinabè authorities rarely communicate about rural areas outside their control, and independent observers do not have access to the ground. The actual toll may be lower or higher. The event, however, is consistent with a trend documented for several months: the rivalry between the two groups has become a full-fledged military campaign.

A front located on an operational hinge

The Oudalan is not just a point on an administrative map. The province extends around Dori, near the borders of Mali and Niger. The tracks that connect this area to the spaces of Ménaka and Gao in Mali form a theater of operations characterized by mobility, rural markets, and water points. A motorized column can disappear into the desert cover and then reappear tens of kilometers away, without ever encountering a regular unit.

This is precisely the type of space that the JNIM and the EIS are fighting over. Control does not merely mean holding a village. It involves collecting zakat, imposing mediators, controlling livestock passages, recruiting from communities, and preventing the opponent from using the same networks. In this war, a motorcycle, a guide, or a well can sometimes be worth more than a fortified position.

The November clashes are part of a broader sequence. AllAfrica had already reported significant clashes in Ganadaouri, in Oudalan, as well as at the Malian border, with claimed losses of several hundred men. These tolls were not independently verifiable. However, they show that both groups are now concentrating significant forces to defend or conquer areas of influence, instead of reserving their strength for attacks against national armies.

Two doctrines, two methods of control

The JNIM maintains a pragmatic approach. In the villages where it seeks to establish itself, it negotiates with local notables, resolves disputes, and adapts the application of its religious rules. This flexibility is not moderation in the political sense: it is a method of consolidation. It reduces the cost of occupation and allows the group to transform an armed presence into a clandestine administration.

The EIS, on the other hand, seeks to impose a more rigid ideological hierarchy. It more easily excommunicates those it accuses of deviation, punishes civilians suspected of cooperation, and uses exemplary violence as a deterrent instrument. Within the same recruitment basin, this difference produces defectors, reprisals, and ongoing competition for local leaders.

The conflict is therefore structural. Both organizations want to tax the same populations, exploit the same corridors, and prevent the other from negotiating with the same communities. The JNIM may tolerate local arrangements that the EIS considers treason. The EIS may massacre a group accused of collusion, giving the JNIM the opportunity to present itself as the less dangerous predator. On the ground, this competition produces a war of legitimacy as much as a war of positions.

A temporary advantage for the AES armies

In the short term, jihadist losses are good news for the forces of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Each eliminated commander and each destroyed motorcycle reduces the pressure on the garrisons. But it would be dangerous to confuse a confrontation between insurgents with a victory for the state.

The armies of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) do not automatically control areas abandoned by one of the groups. If regular forces cannot hold the roads, protect markets, and maintain a presence after the fighting, the jihadist victor will reclaim the networks of the defeated. The inhabitants will then have changed tax collectors, not sovereignty.

The most immediate risk is that of a recomposition. If the EIS emerges strengthened from the Oudalan sequence, it may seek to push towards the northern and eastern corridors of Burkina Faso, at the cost of increased violence against civilians. If the JNIM retains its local networks but loses cadres, it may respond with retaliatory attacks against villages suspected of having aided its rival. In both cases, the army will have to face more dispersed, more distrustful, and harder-to-detect actors.

The real test will be after the fighting

The clashes of November 9 do not prove that Sahelian jihadism is collapsing. They rather demonstrate that the insurgent space is sufficiently vast and profitable to sustain a war within a war. The JNIM and the EIS can mutually weaken each other while continuing to exploit the withdrawal of administration, the insecurity of routes, and the absence of local justice.

The next indicator to watch will not be a victorious statement. It will be the roads around Dori, the reopened or closed markets, the movements of families, and the ability of a Burkinabè unit to hold a post for more than a week. If one of the groups replaces its losses with increased control over the populations, the toll of 46 dead will be just a tactical episode. If it leaves a lasting void, the window will open for the army. For now, this window remains narrow.

Sources

• Critical Threats Project, Salafi Jihadi Areas of Operation in West Africa, updated November 9, 2026.
• AllAfrica, Sahel — Violent clashes between JNIM jihadists and those of the EIS at the Mali-Burkina border, October 16, 2026.
• AllAfrica, A war within a war — The confrontation between the JNIM and the Islamic State in the Sahel, October 16, 2026.