The Alliance of Sahel States in the Face of Jihadist Escalation: Between Security Collapse and Regional Fracture

The central Sahel is experiencing an unprecedented security crisis at the beginning of 2026, exposing the deep limitations of the military strategies adopted by the juntas in power in Bamako, Ouagadougou, and Niamey. While these three capitals have come together within the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) since their break with ECOWAS in January 2025, Islamist armed groups — particularly Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), affiliated with al-Qaeda, and the Sahel Province of the Islamic State (ISSP) — have demonstrated an operational capacity that starkly contrasts with the security rhetoric of the military regimes.

In February 2026, JNIM launched a large-scale coordinated campaign across Burkina Faso, simultaneously attacking military installations, markets, and communication infrastructure. The deadliest attack struck the locality of Titao in the North region in mid-February: 80 soldiers and members of the pro-government militias VDP (Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland) were killed, along with at least 20 civilians. In the preceding weeks, at the end of January and early February, other JNIM assaults killed at least 38 civilians in the villages of Sollé and Tiao in the North region, and at the gendarmerie post in Manni in the East region — nine women were also abducted there, according to Human Rights Watch. These events occur in a context where JNIM conducted over 500 recorded attacks in Burkina Faso for the year 2025 alone, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

Burkina Faso is now the most affected country in the world by terrorism, according to the Global Terrorism Index in its latest edition: a quarter of all global terrorist attacks occurred there in 2024, and nine of the twenty deadliest attacks in the world took place on its territory. Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State now control, according to various estimates, between 60 and 80% of the national territory. The regime of Captain Ibrahim Traoré — 38 years old, in power since the coup d'état of October 2022 — faces a paradoxical situation: it came to power on the promise of a security overhaul, but empirical indicators reveal an 87% deterioration in civilian killings compared to the three years preceding his arrival. The security forces themselves, according to the Atlantic Council, are reported to have killed 132% more civilians in the same period, highlighting the excesses of counter-insurgency operations.

The strategic dimension of this crisis is illustrated, in neighboring Niger, by the attack on January 29, 2026, against the Dori Hamani International Airport in Niamey and the military air base 101, which houses both the drone operations of the Nigerien army and the operational headquarters of the AES. About thirty ISSP fighters used armed drones, light weapons, and mortars in a two-hour nighttime assault. While all assailants were neutralized, the operation achieved one of its implicit objectives: to demonstrate the vulnerability of a major strategic infrastructure, just a few kilometers from the heart of the Sahelian security apparatus. Analysts from African Security Analysis described this assault as a deliberate high-value operation aimed at undermining state authority and testing the resilience of security forces.

In Mali, JNIM maintained an almost total blockade of fuel supply convoys to Bamako from Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal between September 2025 and early 2026. Dozens of tankers were set on fire, partially paralyzing the economy of the capital and its 3 million inhabitants. Although the blockade was partially lifted without official explanation in January 2026, the psychological impact remains profound: perceived insecurity has taken hold in major cities, shattering the illusion of a clear demarcation between jihadist-controlled rural areas and capitals out of reach.

This dynamic unfolds in a geopolitical environment marked by a major institutional fracture. The break of the AES with ECOWAS ended the cooperation of multilateral mechanisms — G5 Sahel, Accra Initiative, Nouakchott Process — that had previously ensured intelligence sharing and joint operations against common jihadist threats. Bilateral tensions have intensified: relations between Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire, on one hand, and between Niger and Benin, on the other, have deteriorated despite historically close economic and social ties. Washington imposed visa restrictions on nationals of AES countries starting January 1, 2026, citing security risks and deficiencies in intelligence sharing — a decision immediately reciprocated by the three juntas.

In the face of this isolation of the Sahelian juntas, ECOWAS announced in March 2026, during a meeting of chiefs of staff in Freetown (Sierra Leone), the activation of its regional standby force (ESF), with an initial deployment goal of 2,000 soldiers by the end of 2026 to operate in coastal states threatened by jihadist expansion — Benin, Togo, Ghana. While this arrangement addresses a real urgency — armed groups have already struck in the northern regions of Benin and Togo — it faces two structural obstacles: insufficient funding for the mechanism and the de facto exclusion of the three most affected countries, which now form the AES.

The increasing use of drones by jihadist groups is one of the most concerning tactical developments of 2025-2026. Whether for direct strikes or reconnaissance purposes before ground assaults, this low-cost technological adoption profoundly transforms the balance of power. Specialized analysts interviewed by Al Jazeera in February 2026 point to the difficulty of regular armies in counterbalancing this asymmetry with sufficient anti-drone means, particularly in Burkina Faso where the VDP severely lack modern equipment.

The regimes of the AES — bolstered by military advisors from the Africa Corps (formerly Wagner), whose presence in Mali and Burkina Faso has been documented — maintain tight control over information. In Ouagadougou, Radio France Internationale and France 24 have been suspended several times since 2023, and four international NGOs have been expelled. This deliberate opacity hinders both external analysis and internal accountability, leaving civilian populations voiceless in the face of the spiral of violence.

Short-term prospects remain bleak. Analysts from the Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) in Pretoria estimate that jihadist groups do not have the critical mass necessary to seize the capitals. However, structural dynamics — the collapse of public services, the displacement of 3 to 5 million people in Burkina Faso, 6 million people requiring humanitarian aid in 2025 — fuel a recruitment ground that military operations alone cannot neutralize. The security equation of the central Sahel demands a holistic response integrating social and economic interventions that the current juntas seem structurally incapable or unwilling to adopt.