Sahel: The rivalry between the AES and ECOWAS reshapes West African security geopolitics

The reconfiguration of the security architecture in the Sahel is entering a critical phase with the emergence of two competing regional military projects: the Unified Force of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and the Standby Force of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This institutional duality, born from the political fracture between the Sahelian military juntas and the West African bloc, raises fundamental questions about the future of regional cooperation in the face of an ever-expanding terrorist threat.

Officially launched in December 2025 during a ceremony presided over by General Assimi Goïta in Bamako, the Unified Force of the AES comprises 6,000 soldiers from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Its headquarters, established in Niamey, has complete operational authority over the deployed contingents, allowing it to mobilize and redeploy its troops without prior approval from national staffs. This operational autonomy represents a major break from the G5 Sahel model, where battalions were confined to predefined geographical sectors with a pursuit right limited to 100 kilometers on either side of national borders.

The three member states of the AES have learned from the failure of the G5 Sahel Joint Force, which in five years of existence never managed to establish a decisive operational presence. Despite 25 security operations conducted and hundreds of terrorists neutralized according to its commander in 2021, General Oumarou Namata, this force was unable to stem the expansion of the terrorist threat or reduce its intensity. The chronic underfunding of this structure, whose annual budget of 423 million euros far exceeded the contributions of member states, had made it dependent on external partners, notably France through Operation Barkhane.

The AES aims to free itself from this dependency by mobilizing domestic resources through three distinct mechanisms: the Patriotic Support Fund of Burkina Faso, the Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland of Niger, and the Fund for Support of Basic Infrastructure Projects and Social Development of Mali. On March 28, 2025, the three countries also agreed to introduce an import tax of 0.5 percent intended to finance the confederal institutions, including the Unified Force. This financial autonomy is accompanied by a diversification of military partnerships: equipment and armaments are acquired from Russia, Turkey, Iran, and China, while the Russian Africa Corps has become the preferred security partner of the alliance, with varying engagement modalities depending on the countries.

In response to this Sahelian initiative, ECOWAS announced during a meeting of military chiefs in Sierra Leone the mobilization of a regional Standby Force initially comprising 2,000 soldiers by the end of 2026, with an expressed ambition to eventually constitute a force of 260,000 men with an annual budget of 2.5 billion dollars. However, this ambitious plan faces considerable structural challenges. The ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace, and Security, Abdel-Fatau Musah, had already mentioned in September 2025 the deployment of a Rapid Deployment Force of 1,650 personnel in 2026, raising questions about the coherence and feasibility of these successive announcements.

Funding constitutes the first major obstacle. Nigeria, traditionally providing 75 percent of the personnel for ECOWAS missions and the main financial backer of the regional bloc, is no longer able to play this predominant role. The country is facing a major economic crisis, with soaring inflation in 2023 adding to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, its defense forces are mobilized on multiple fronts: ideological groups in the northeast, criminal gangs in the northwest and central-north, and armed separatist movements in the south. Analysts mention potential sources of funding such as the United States, which has been collaborating with Nigeria since December 2025 after initial tensions, and France, which is gradually moving closer to Abuja.

Operational coordination is also a concern. The Standby Force will have to face at least eight different armed groups that use dense forest areas as refuges and cross-border movement corridors. According to Beverly Ochieng, an analyst based in Dakar for Control Risks, ECOWAS will need to prioritize intervention areas and determine whether to focus on certain threats over others, such as pirates or criminal gangs exploiting security gaps. She also emphasizes the need for social interventions in rural areas from which armed groups recruit their members, as these groups often ensure their local grip by collecting taxes and providing resources such as fertilizers, building mosques, or promising security.

The fracture between the AES and ECOWAS constitutes the third major challenge. The three Sahelian states officially left the regional bloc in January 2025 after it imposed sanctions to force them to hold elections and restore civilian power. All three are at the heart of the terrorist crisis, with several armed groups operating along their common borders. The Malian army took power in 2020, followed by Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023, each junta justifying its coup by the inability of the civilian government to effectively combat the insurgents. Collectively, they have broken with France, their historical ally and former colonial power that had deployed around 4,000 soldiers in the region, to turn towards Moscow. Approximately 2,000 Russian fighters, initially from the Wagner paramilitary group and then from the state-controlled Africa Corps, are now present in the three countries.

This competitive dynamic has resulted in rigid diplomatic postures. Despite mediation attempts by countries like Senegal, which maintains friendly relations with the Sahelian states, and the open-door policy adopted by ECOWAS, the military leaders of the AES have remained inflexible. According to Ochieng, the AES seeks to prove that it can compete with ECOWAS by effectively combating armed groups, which explains the construction of its combined force of 6,000 men. One of the criticisms made by the AES upon its departure was precisely that ECOWAS was not sufficiently supporting the counter-terrorism effort and was overly focused on political and electoral issues.

The recent terrorist escalation demonstrates the urgency of the situation. On January 29, 2026, the Dori Hamani International Airport in Niamey and the military air base 101 were attacked by 30 fighters from the Islamic State's Sahel Province. This base houses Nigerien drone operations and the headquarters of the Alliance of Sahel States. The nighttime attack, which lasted two hours and involved armed drones, light weapons, and mortars, aimed to undermine state authority and test the response capability of security forces, although all assailants were killed or captured. According to African Security Analysis, this offensive represents a notable operational escalation by the EI-Sahel.

In Mali, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) imposed a blockade for three months aimed at strangling the capital Bamako and destabilizing the Malian economy. Starting in September 2025, the group intercepted fuel convoys from Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, burning a dozen tankers in one incident. The blockade was eased in early 2026 without explanation, but the psychological impact lingers. In Burkina Faso, JNIM conducted over 500 attacks in 2025 according to the SITE Intelligence Group, and extremists control up to 60 percent of the territory, virtually encircling the capital Ouagadougou. In February 2026, a deadly attack in Titao in the north killed 80 soldiers and militiamen as well as at least 20 civilians, simultaneously targeting a military camp, a market, and local communication infrastructure.

Terrorist groups have significant numbers and sophisticated organization. JNIM, the main faction affiliated with al-Qaeda in West Africa, has between 5,000 and 6,000 members and operates in Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, and has recorded at least one attack in Nigeria. Boko Haram, although weakened since the death of its leader Abubakar Shekau in 2021, still has around 1,500 fighters. The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which emerged from a split with Boko Haram over the treatment of Muslim civilians, is estimated to have between 3,500 and 5,000 fighters operating mainly in northeastern Nigeria. Ansaru, another splinter group from Boko Haram now linked to al-Qaeda, has 2,000 to 3,000 members and is suspected of collaborating with JNIM as part of an al-Qaeda attempt to create a West African arc uniting its Sahelian and Nigerian branches.

In light of this operational reality, the question of collaboration between the AES and ECOWAS becomes central. The states of the AES cannot adopt a siloed approach that treats the Sahel in isolation from its West African neighbors. The effectiveness of the Unified Force will depend on its ability to cooperate with the armies of neighboring states, many of which also face threats from violent extremism. The illicit supply and smuggling channels that fuel armed groups with operational resources cross many regional borders, involving Nigeria, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Ghana, Guinea, and Senegal.

The Tarha Nakal exercise, conducted in May 2024 in Tillia, Niger, by the armed forces of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Togo, demonstrated the capacity of these countries to pool their resources and coordinate their operations despite political divergences. The African Union appears to be the best-placed body to resolve tensions between the AES countries and their Gulf of Guinea neighbors. Politically, mediation efforts could rebuild trust and ease tensions. Regarding counter-terrorism, the AU could promote cooperation between ECOWAS's counter-terrorism force and the Unified Force of the AES.

Analysts Leylatou Saidou Daoura and Rahinatou Leïla Salia from the Institute for Security Studies emphasize that despite the claims of the three junta leaders that they would combat terrorism more effectively than their democratic predecessors, the deterioration of conditions on the ground reveals the limits of this approach. An anonymous lecturer from the University of Legal and Political Sciences in Bamako, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, observes that the Malian army is exhausted by persistent terrorist attacks and defections to JNIM, adding that the junta does not seem to have a response to the terrorist expansion, nor do its counterparts in Niger and Burkina Faso.

The failure of the exclusively military approach is becoming evident. Between January and June 2025, the region recorded 12,964 conflict-related deaths in 5,907 incidents, with nearly all deaths concentrated in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, according to the Center for Democracy and Development. This excessive militarization, far from addressing the root causes of the insurgency, risks fueling a cycle of violence within local communities. Social interventions, rural development, inclusive governance, and transitional justice are dimensions as essential as the security response, but they are largely neglected in the current strategies of both rival blocs.

The institutional duality that now characterizes the West African security landscape poses a major strategic challenge. Two competing regional forces, one comprising 6,000 men and relying on Russian support, the other aiming for 260,000 soldiers with uncertain funding and complex coordination, operate in a context marked by unprecedented regional political fragmentation. This rivalry, far from strengthening response capabilities against terrorist groups, risks creating operational gray areas, duplicating efforts, and diverting already limited resources towards institutional competition rather than operational effectiveness.

The future of Sahelian security will depend less on the numerical superiority of one force over the other than on the ability of regional actors to transcend their political divisions to establish pragmatic mechanisms for intelligence sharing, joint monitoring, and ultimately coordinated operations. The African Union and international partners have a crucial role to play in facilitating this dialogue, but the political will of the protagonists remains the sine qua non condition for any significant progress. In the meantime, the civilian populations of the Sahel continue to pay the heaviest price for a crisis that, in the absence of a concerted and multidimensional response, threatens to inexorably extend towards the coastal states of West Africa.