The Sahel becomes the epicenter of global terrorism

In 2023, the Sahel has become the epicenter of global terrorism, with one in three deaths from this cause across the planet, according to the Global Terrorism Index published by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The coming to power of military junta in the three countries most affected by the expansion of jihadism, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and their attempts to forcibly recover part of the territory they had lost to armed groups are behind this increase in terrorist activity.

The situation is especially worrying in Burkina Faso, which for the first time leads the world statistics with 1,907 of the 8,352 killed by terrorism in the world in 2023. Mali occupies third position with 753 deaths and Niger is tenth with 468, which raises the deaths in the central Sahel to 3,128 in one year.

The conflict, which began in northern Mali in 2012 and then spread to its two neighboring countries, has caused tens of thousands of deaths in a decade, but has intensified in recent months after the military took power.

“To a large extent, the coups d'état occurred due to the deterioration of the security situation.

But if you look at the evolution before and after the blows, it does not give the impression that it has improved;

On the contrary, it has deteriorated in all three countries,” says Ibrahim Yahaya, coordinator for the Sahel of the International Crisis Group (ICG).

In Mali, the military coup of May 2021 brought Colonel Assimi Goïta to power, who, after breaking ties with France, established a strategic alliance with Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Thanks to the military support of some 1,500 Wagner mercenaries present on Malian soil, he launched an offensive against the jihadist groups operating in the center of the country and, from mid-2023, another against the armed Tuareg independence groups in the north.

The victories obtained on both fronts, although not definitive, have reinforced Goïta's power and expanded his popular support.

The price to pay has been a generalization of violence against civilians carried out by both the Malian army and members of Wagner.

The revelation of the Moura massacre at the end of March 2022, in which, according to the UN, around 500 civilian victims were executed and around 60 women raped by Russian mercenaries and Malian soldiers, led to the expulsion, a year later, of the United Nations mission of Mali.

In the last year alone, some 100,000 people have fled the north of the country to Algeria, Niger or Mauritania.

Sources from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) speak of “systematic and unprecedented violence” against the civilian population and, in particular, against the Tuareg communities that have traditionally supported the rebellion.

Break with the West

In Burkina Faso, the priority of the military junta that took power in September 2022 has from the first moment been the fight against jihadist groups that occupy more than half of its territory, particularly the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and the Islamic State of the Sahel Province, formerly EIGS.

However, the rupture of the new military authorities with the West has weakened the capabilities of its Armed Forces and internal divisions within the army, with threats of military uprisings, have forced President Ibrahim Traoré to exercise extreme caution.

In fact, the Russian instructors who have landed in Burkina Faso have been seen above all in the capital, Ouagadougou, more to guarantee the security of the president than to go to fight on the military front.

“These internal tensions make it difficult to mobilize all elements of the army.

Furthermore, they lack resources, both human and material,” says Yahaya.

The Burkinabe combat strategy relies largely on the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), some 80,000 civilians spread throughout the territory, almost always with little weapons and training, who have become the first line of defense. before the jihadists.

The murders of civilians occur almost daily: the security forces have committed massacres against citizens whom they accuse of complicity with the terrorists while the latter murder the members of the VDP or raze the towns where they come from, in a kind of endless spiral of violence.

Finally, in Niger, jihadist groups have been gaining ground after the coup d'état last summer, and from their initial positions in Tillabéri and Diffa they have spread to towns near the northwestern border of Nigeria such as Dosso and Tahoua.

With the military more concerned with consolidating its power in the capital, Niamey, radical Islamists are progressively establishing themselves.

After expelling the French forces, the new Nigerien authorities also approach Russia.

“However, there is support and reluctance within the army” regarding the model of military cooperation with Moscow, according to Yahaya, “some think that jihadism can be confronted without help and others that they will need Russia.”

Faced with the vacuum created by the rupture with the West, and in particular with France, the three military junta have decided to mutualize their defense efforts through the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which is rapidly evolving from an exclusively military pact to an organization regional political and economic policy outside the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The strength of this new structure is its autonomy from the outside.

“In Lake Chad, the joint multinational force, led by Nigeria, has managed to inflict severe defeats on the greatly weakened Boko Haram.

From that perspective, the AES makes perfect sense,” adds the ICG coordinator for the Sahel.

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