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Europe’s Sahel dilemma: to engage or not to engage
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have now become the epicenters of the world’s largest jihadi insurgency. The analysis by Corrado Cok
On May 11, more than 100 people, including security forces and civilians, were killed in northern Burkina Faso in an attack launched by al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). JNIM is the foremost jihadi organization operating in central Sahel. Human Rights Watch reported in the same period that, back in March, the Burkinabe army and state-backed militia had been responsible for the killing of over 130 people from the Fulani ethnic group that largely fills the ranks of JNIM. Retaliatory massacres by government forces and jihadists have grown in scope and death toll over the past years. This vicious cycle of violence is devastating central Sahel and spreading further south to West African coastal states, seriously impacting human suffering, displacement and regional security. No definitive solution seems within reach.
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have now become the epicenters of the world’s largest jihadi insurgency. According to the Global Terrorism Index, 51% of all terrorism-related casualties in 2024 occurred in the Sahel. More than half of Burkina Faso’s territory and vast swathes of northern and central Mali are out of government control. While the jihadi insurgency is more circumscribed in Niger, the number of attacks and military operations has grown exponentially since 2023. The resulting humanitarian crisis as of 2023 has seen 4.2 million people displaced and 6.3 million food insecure. Figures have likely grown since then, especially with the major cuts witnessed in humanitarian aid.
The spark, the fuel, the fire
The crisis that rages across the Sahel is rooted in history. French colonialism crafted geographically and ethnically heterogeneous states, where weak central authorities retained control over peripheral regions manu militari. This fueled grievances and anti-government sentiment. Armed traffickers further compounded human insecurity across the Sahara-Sahel region. Following the collapse of the Libyan state in 2012, the spread of weapons and extremist groups across the Sahara sparked a robust insurgency in northern Mali (known as the Azawad), where jihadist organisations, like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and Tuareg separatist groups joined forces against the Malian state.
As the insurgency swept most of Mali and threatened the capital, Bamako, France deployed around 5,000 troops through Opération Serval. The French mission de facto blocked the insurgents’ advance and paved way to the 2015 Algiers Peace Accord by separating jihadist elements from Tuareg secessionist groups. Alongside France, multiple international security initiatives also emerged: a US drone-based counterterrorism operation; one of the largest UN peacekeeping missions, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA); several EU training and capacity-building missions; and a joint local force in the making (G5 Sahel), were all deployed to stabilize the region. While maintaining a squarely security-based approach to counterinsurgency, international missions have insisted on tight human-rights compliance and civilian protection rules when cooperating with Sahelian armed forces. This has caused frustration amongst the rank and file.
Despite their combined might, international security initiatives failed to eradicate extremist forces which instead spread southward across the porous borderlands between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger (the Liptako-Gourma region). In these peripheral areas, jihadist groups found fertile ground, mainly among the oppressed Fulani herding community, to recruit new fighters— amicably or forcibly—and tap into new resources, such as gold. The influx of weapons from jihadi networks also exacerbated local conflicts over land, water and pasture between herding and farming communities, with the latter forming self-defense, anti-Fulani groups backed by central governments. As a result, the conflict escalated, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.
Against this grim trend, Mauritania has managed to fend off the presence of AQIM through a far-sighted strategy that combines enhanced military capabilities to patrol its vast peripheral regions, dialogue with extremist groups, rural community outreach, and army-led development projects which have helped win the hearts and minds of local populations. On a similar note, Chad has avoided become a hotbed for jihadi groups and, thanks to effective armed forces, has contained extremist organizations in the Lake Chad region.
The counter-reformation
Faced with an expanding jihadist insurgency, the three central Sahel states made a dramatic (geo)political shift between 2020 and 2023. Public opinion had indicated growing frustration with security failures, with many pointing their fingers at international (especially French) operations in the Sahel. Military officers hoped to shake off this international scrutiny, often perceived as paternalistic, by resorting to drastic measures to wrestle control of their peripheral regions from Jihadi affiliates, regardless of civilian protection practices. Additionally, Russian intelligence saw an opportunity to stir the local populations against western-allied governments through massive disinformation campaigns which mostly targeted France’s far-reaching presence and local contentious issues, like the 2015 Peace Accord in Mali.
As a result, the Malian military seized power first in 2020 and then again in 2021, and began calling for the withdrawal of French, EU and UN missions. Instead, it invited Russia’s Africa Corps (former Wagner group) to assist it. The Burkinabé army followed suit when Captain Ibrahim Traoré orchestrated a military coup that brought him to power in Ouagadougou in 2022. The following 2023, Niger took a similar step in another military coup led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani. Burkina Faso and Niger also broke ties with western countries and opened their doors to Russia and Türkiye. While the Africa Corps fights alongside the army in Mali, it mainly serves as a praetorian guard in Burkina Faso and Niger protecting the new Russia-aligned leaders.
Since the coup, Malian armed forces and Africa Corps have engaged jihadist organisations as well as Tuareg groups and deployed ruthless tactics that have targeted civilians; the Moura massacre is one such instance where an estimated 500 civilians died. In Burkina Faso and Niger, the military has resorted to similar actions resulting in high civilian casualties amongst Fulani and other communities allegedly connected to JNIM or the Islamic State in the Greater Sahel. These tactics have largely backfired. In Mali, Tuareg groups and JNIM have reopened their collaboration and launched notable attacks against security forces and the Africa Corps in the north and even in Bamako in 2024. JNIM has advanced across Burkina Faso and concerningly built up its combat capabilities using rudimentary drones. Inter-ethnic massacres by JNIM and state-backed militias have fueled a spiral of violence that further intensifies the conflict.
Regional consequences have also accompanied the geopolitical shift of Sahelian countries. In 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formed the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES), agreeing on mutual defense commitments, when Nigerian president Bola Tinubu suggested a military intervention to reverse the coup in Niger. In January 2025, they took a step further and broke their ties with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). While the AES juntas have maintained some regional programs like freedom of movement and the Franc CFA monetary union, other cooperation mechanisms with ECOWAS have been interrupted, including security and counter-terrorism.
Strained security cooperation between AES and ECOWAS is creating room for JNIM to penetrate in West Africa’s coastal states. More worryingly, cross-border attacks into Benin, Togo, Ghana and, to a lesser extent, Cote d’Ivoire have gradually increased in strength and frequency. Since the beginning of year, the Beninese army has suffered more casualties than in the entire year of 2024. Should instability spread across coastal states, the scale of human suffering and displacement could be unprecedented. Moreover, key European security, economic and energy interests would be jeopardized by such an escalation. Lastly, tensions between Bamako and Algiers spiked in April, after the downing of a Malian drone by Algeria’s air defenses, which maintains ties with Tuareg groups living along their shared border. The incident signals that Sahel’s northern borderlands are also exposed to more instability following coups.
Europe’s strategic dilemma
Sahel’s spiraling security crisis and hostile geopolitical shift place Europe in a conundrum. The EU and its member states had been steadfast—though largely ineffective—supporters of local governments before coups turned Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger against them. The security, humanitarian and migration concerns that led European countries to intervene in the first place are still there and have only worsened. Yet, juntas have allowed Russia to establish a stable foothold along Europe’s southern neighborhood and cut virtually all cooperation programs with European countries. Italy’s support mission to Niger (MISIN) is among the few notable exceptions.
