A group of Al Qaeda-linked militants are reportedly on the cusp of seizing control of the West African nation of Mali in what many fear could lead to a complete takeover of a national government by a designated terrorist organization.
The Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate, has in recent days intensified a campaign in Mali’s capital city Bamako by blocking major fuel supply routes and attacking army convoys.
The events signal the volatility of the Sahel region, which stands at a dangerous crossroads: weak or ineffective states, youth unemployment and political instability have created fertile ground for jihadist groups — turning West Africa into the epicenter of a resurgent, globally connected jihadist threat, Northeastern University experts say.
“As the United States is wont to do, we took our eye off the ball — and it’s coming back to haunt us,” says William Miles, a political science professor at Northeastern, who has traveled extensively across West Africa.
Exactly what that threat might look like beyond the continent remains unclear. But experts have pointed to a recent uptick in terrorism worldwide as a warning that instability in the Sahel could have global consequences.
The number of countries with at least one documented terrorist incident rose from 58 to 66 in 2024, indicating the highest jump since 2018, according to the Global Terrorism Index. In 2024, global progress reversed for the first time in seven years, with 45 countries facing increased terrorist activity and only 34 having shown improvement, according to the index.
09/05/23 – BOSTON, MA. – Northeastern professor of political science William Miles poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
01/08/25 – OAKLAND, CA: Martha Johnson, associate professor of political science, poses for a portrait on Jan. 08, 2025 in Oakland, California. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
Experts have pointed to a recent uptick in terrorism worldwide as a warning that instability in the Sahel could have global consequences. Photos by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University and Ruby Wallau/Northeastern University
Experts warn of growing Islamic State-linked activity in the Sahel region, specifically in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and an uptick of operations in Syria and Iraq, where IS once held large swaths of territory — though the group has not yet regained the extensive territorial control it once held.
After a U.S.-led campaign successfully ousted Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2011, weakening Al Qaeda in the region, it appeared that the global jihadist movement had been contained, Miles says. But the thinking among some in American defense circles was that extremist networks would seek new footholds elsewhere — specifically in regions with large Muslim populations, weakened or little government control and open, or “unpoliced,” borders, Miles explains.
Parts of Africa, particularly in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, where there was limited state power and vast, uncontrolled territories, were ripe for terrorist infiltration, he says. As a result, the epicenter of global jihadist activity gradually shifted from the Middle East to Africa.
Adding fuel to the fire, Miles says, is the fact that JNIM has been successfully recruiting “frustrated” West Africans — primarily young men who, in addition to being “seduced by notions of going to heaven” if they join the jihad, are drawn in by the opportunity to better their economic circumstances.
As Western humanitarian and counterterrorism support has vacated the region, threats to the stability of the region have increased, says Martha Johnson, an associate professor of political science.
Johnson has documented at length the dire economic circumstances facing young West Africans, in particular.
“Youth in Africa face excessively high unemployment, even among those with college degrees, and difficulty securing quality education,” Johnson says. “And of course, they are frustrated with political leaders’ persistent inability to deliver a better quality of life.”
Given his experiences on the ground, Miles was initially skeptical about the prospect of a jihadist takeover of West Africa when it was first being discussed a couple years ago.
“But in the end, that notion was correct,” he says. “From about 2003 onward, the Sahel has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda affiliates and other branches and rivals of Al Qaeda, but still jihadist ones.”
Another dimension contributing to the spread of terrorist activity in the Sahel was the Tuareg ethnonationalist rebellions, a series of uprisings that destabilized the region and created space for jihadist infiltration, Miles says. The Tuaregs — a traditionally nomadic group, who are among the last to resist French colonial rule in the early 20th century — were sponsored by former Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi, who sought to expand Libya’s influence southward into the Sahel, he says.
Those rebellions were focused in Mali and Niger, whose leaders eventually struck peace deals with Tuareg rebel leaders. But the Tuaregs remained skeptical of colonial-era borders carved out by France.
“The United States, and France, in particular, were aiding the governments of Niger and Mali in their anti-insurgency activities,” Miles says. “And then there was a series of coups where the governments were overthrown by a military that no longer wanted French and U.S. assistance in their counterterrorism activities.”
Following the 2023 coup in Niger, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of France’s troops from the Sahel, ending a decade-long counterterrorism mission in the region.
“It is our responsibility to look at the big picture and see the situation for what it is: the truth is that the entire region has become unstable,” said Catherine Colonna, then France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, later that year.
Last month, France suspended counterterrorism cooperation in Mali, and both governments declared each other’s diplomats persona non grata.
Nathan Sales, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large and coordinator for counterterrorism, told lawmakers earlier this year that the Sahel region “accounted for 51 percent of global terrorism-related deaths, with the number of such deaths rising by a factor of ten since 2019.”
“West Africa continues to emerge as an epicenter of global terrorism,” Sales said during a House subcommittee hearing on the Middle East and North Africa.
The regimes in Mali and Niger have turned to Russia which, Miles says, has been largely ineffective in countering the jihadists. Couple that with the fact that U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts — chiefly the Pan-Sahel Initiative, which later became the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership — have been scaled back, and the region has become fertile ground for terrorist activity.
Northeastern University national security expert Stephen Flynn, who worked under the Bush and Obama administrations, says that groups such as Al Qaeda have been flying under the radar as a consequence of “a growing focus on ‘great power’ competitors like China and Russia.”
“But the lines between state and non-state actors have become increasingly blurred as this mounting risk that an Al Qaeda affiliate in Mali may be poised to become a disruptive state actor in the heart of West Africa,” Flynn says.
Miles describes the situation at present as a “political vacuum.”
The JNIM has gradually filled that vacuum, amassing resources and financing itself through raids, cattle theft, smuggling, kidnappings for ransom, extortion and the imposition of local taxes on communities under its influence.
And as JNIM consolidates its presence in Mali, the broader threat from the Islamic State continues to simmer across the Sahel. Indeed, IS and its affiliates have also expanded into West Africa, where they are contesting Al Qaeda for influence, Miles says.
Between 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State ruled over vast stretches of Syria and Iraq — nearly one-third of both countries, by most accounts — and projected its violence far beyond the region. It carried out major assaults in European cities such as Paris and Brussels, broadcasting gruesome executions of hostages to the world.
Tanner Stening is an assistant news editor at Northeastern Global News. Email him at t.stening@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X/Twitter @tstening90.