Sahel: Institutional Fragmentation in the Face of Terrorist Escalation

West Africa is facing an unprecedented security situation at the beginning of 2026. As jihadist groups intensify their operations and directly threaten Sahelian capitals, the regional response is itself deeply fragmented between two competing initiatives: the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Standby Force and the Unified Force of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). This institutional division not only reflects a major political rift but also risks compromising the effectiveness of counter-terrorism operations in a region where urgency is only increasing.

The decision by ECOWAS to activate a regional force of 2,000 soldiers, announced in early March 2026 during a meeting of military chiefs of staff in Sierra Leone, comes in a context marked by the intensification of terrorist attacks. This initiative responds to what experts describe as an "existential threat to the security" of the region. According to data from the Center for Democracy and Development, between January and June 2025, West Africa recorded 12,964 conflict-related deaths across 5,907 incidents, with nearly all concentrated in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

The ECOWAS force will have to face at least eight different armed groups, primarily Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), affiliated with al-Qaeda and estimated to have between 5,000 and 6,000 fighters, and the Islamic State in the Sahel Province (ISSP), which operates mainly in Niger and Mali. Recent attacks demonstrate an increasing sophistication of these groups: the nighttime assault on January 29, 2026, against the Dori Hamani International Airport in Niamey and Base Aérienne 101 is the most striking example.

During this operation, thirty ISSP fighters used armed drones, small arms, and mortars to target strategic infrastructures housing Nigerien military drone operations and the AES headquarters. Although all assailants were neutralized after a two-hour fight, African Security Analysis emphasizes that the attack achieved its main objective: to demonstrate that terrorist groups remain an active threat despite intense counter-terrorism operations and to test the response capability of security forces.

In Mali, the situation is hardly more reassuring. Between September 2025 and early 2026, JNIM imposed a blockade on fuel convoys coming from Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, partially paralyzing the economy of Bamako. In a particularly symbolic incident, the group set fire to a dozen tankers entering from Senegal. Although the blockade eased in early 2026 without a clear explanation, its psychological impact persists among the population of the Malian capital, which fears a reoccurrence of this economic strangulation strategy.

In Burkina Faso, the situation is even more critical. JNIM conducted over 500 attacks in 2025 according to SITE Intelligence Group, and extremists are said to control up to 60% of the national territory, gradually encircling the capital Ouagadougou. Nighttime attacks on military supply lines and the extensive use of improvised explosive devices have confined armed forces and volunteer militias to areas close to their bases in the Centre-North, East, and Sahel regions. The mid-February 2026 attack in Titao, in the north of the country, killed 80 soldiers and militiamen as well as at least 20 civilians, simultaneously targeting a military camp, a market, and communication facilities.

In the face of this escalation, the regional response appears paradoxically divided. The Alliance of Sahel States, created in 2023 by Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger after their withdrawal from ECOWAS, launched its Unified Force of 6,000 men, based in Niamey, in December 2025. This third attempt at a joint security mechanism for the central Sahelian states follows the failure of the Multinational Joint Task Force of Liptako-Gourma (January 2017) and the G5 Sahel Joint Force (July 2017).

The G5 Sahel Joint Force, which included Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, became ineffective after the withdrawal of AES countries in 2022-2023, following military coups in these three nations. The new military juntas rejected the G5 framework as emblematic of Western influence, particularly French, from which they sought to break free. The G5 Sahel had conducted 25 security operations that, according to its commander in 2021, General Oumarou Namata, resulted in the neutralization of hundreds of terrorists, but the force ultimately failed to stem the expansion of the terrorist threat.

The main handicap of the G5 Sahel lay in its chronic underfunding. Its annual operational budget, initially set at 423 million euros, far exceeded the contributions of its member states, making the force heavily dependent on external partners. The lack of adequate air assets and a functional intelligence system—critical for counter-terrorism operations—significantly undermined its capabilities, leaving the central Sahelian states dependent on France and its Barkhane operation.

The Unified Force of the AES aims to be different. Its member states are determined to preserve the independence of their new force by mobilizing domestic resources through Burkina Faso's Patriotic Support Fund, Niger's Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland, and Mali's Support Fund for Basic Infrastructure and Social Development Projects. On March 28, 2025, the three countries agreed to introduce a 0.5% import tax to finance the confederal institutions, including the Unified Force. Simultaneously, AES countries are diversifying their military cooperation partnerships by sourcing equipment and arms from Russia, Turkey, Iran, and China. The Africa Corps of Russia is the preferred security partner of the AES, with about 2,000 fighters deployed, although the terms of engagement vary significantly between the three countries.

Operationally, the Unified Force of the AES has complete authority over the deployed troops, allowing it to move units without prior approval from national military staffs—a major structural constraint that had paralyzed the G5 Sahel. The units are intended to operate across the three countries, without the geographical limitations that confined G5 Sahel battalions to designated sectors with pursuit rights limited to a radius of 100 km on either side of national borders.

Meanwhile, the ECOWAS Force faces its own major challenges. Funding is a significant obstacle. Nigeria, which traditionally provided 75% of personnel for ECOWAS missions and represented a major donor, is no longer in the same economic position as in the 1990s. The country has been experiencing high inflation since 2023, and its defense forces are mobilized on multiple fronts: ideological groups in the northeast, increasing collaboration with criminal gangs in the northwest and center-north, and armed groups fighting for an independent state in the south.

Beverly Ochieng, an analyst based in Dakar for Control Risks, identifies the United States— which has strengthened its cooperation with Nigeria since December—and France, increasingly close to Abuja, as potential sources of funding. But operational coordination remains complex: ECOWAS will need to prioritize its areas of intervention in the face of at least eight armed groups using forested areas as hideouts and corridors for movement between countries.

The rift between ECOWAS and the AES represents a major challenge to the effectiveness of any regional response. The three AES countries are at the heart of the crisis, with several armed groups operating along their shared borders. ECOWAS fractured in 2025 after the regional bloc used sanctions to try to force the AES post-coup states to hold elections and return to civilian rule. The three military juntas have proven intransigent, rejecting mediation approaches and working to prove that they can compete with ECOWAS by effectively combating armed groups.

Yet, as researchers Leylatou Saidou Daoura and Rahinatou Leïla Salia from the Institute for Security Studies point out, the effectiveness of the Unified Force of the AES will depend on its ability to cooperate with the armies of neighboring states—many of which also face threats from violent extremism and criminal networks. Illicit supply and smuggling channels for operational resources (weapons, motorcycles, fuel, drones) to armed groups cross many regional borders.

Exercise Tarha Nakal, conducted in May 2024 in Tillia, Niger, by the armed forces of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Togo, demonstrated that this pragmatic cooperation remains possible despite political disputes. The African Union appears well-placed to resolve tensions between AES countries and their Gulf of Guinea neighbors by promoting cooperation between the ECOWAS counter-terrorism force and the Unified Force of the AES.

The current situation in the Sahel highlights a tragic paradox: as terrorist groups intensify their operations and directly threaten strategic infrastructures and capitals in the region, the institutional response is fragmenting along political and geopolitical lines. The statements from AES junta leaders promising to master the terrorist threat in a way that their democratic predecessors could not stand in stark contrast to the reality on the ground: in Mali, the army is stretched to its limits by persistent terrorist attacks and defections to JNIM; in Burkina Faso, terrorists control 60% of the territory; in Niger, the capital's airport has been attacked.

As a lecturer at the University of Legal and Political Sciences in Bamako anonymously confided to Africa Report, fearing reprisals: "The junta does not seem to have a response to the terrorist expansion, nor do its counterparts in Niger and Burkina Faso." In this context, the institutional division between ECOWAS and the AES represents not just a matter of political rivalry but a concrete obstacle to operational effectiveness in a region where every lost day in coordination translates into lost lives and territories abandoned to extremist groups.