The Sahel’s Terror Surge Signals a New Front in Global Security

In the span of a few hours, Manda joined the growing list of towns and villages reduced to symbols of terror, underscoring the reality that groups like Islamic State in the Sahel now operate less as rogue insurgents than as entrenched power brokers whose reach stretches across Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. For the United States, the massacre is more than a humanitarian catastrophe — it is a sobering reminder that the doctrine of forward defense faces its most formidable test yet in Africa’s most fragile frontier.

“The threat from Sahelian jihadists is really two-fold,” Caleb Weiss, editor of FDD’s Long War Journal, tells The Cipher Brief. “They are destabilizing wider West Africa, particularly the Gulf of Guinea states, which have been firm U.S. and Western allies. And secondly, there is worry about European security if jihadis in the Sahel are allowed to operate freely. The Sahel can become a base of operations from which to launch or even sponsor attacks into continental Europe.”

Hans-Jakob Schindler, Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project, frames the problem in similarly stark terms.

“There are two primary terrorist threats that can be identified,” he tells The Cipher Brief. “First of all, the rapid expansion of the al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM as well as the ISIS affiliates ISSP and ISWAP in the Sahel region has destabilized several countries, in particular Burkina Faso, Mali and to a growing extent also Niger, with continuing serious security problems in the North of Nigeria.”

From Margins to Mainstream: The Rise of Sahelian Jihadism

The massacre in Manda reflects a decade-long unraveling of state control. The collapse of Libya in 2011 unleashed vast armories and fighters into the desert, reigniting dormant rebellions and enabling extremist groups to entrench themselves in northern Mali. The Malian state itself fragmented in 2012 following a coup, allowing jihadist coalitions to seize major northern cities.

Over time, groups splintered and reformed. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, emerged in 2017, while the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) evolved into the Islamic State’s Sahel Province. These factions began imposing taxes, adjudicating disputes, and governing their respective territories. According to Vision of Humanity, the Sahel accounted for 51 percent of global terrorism deaths in 2024, with nearly 25,000 conflict-related fatalities — a near tenfold increase since 2019.

Liam Carnes-Douglas of the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC) says the rise reflects more than battlefield victories.

“Some of the most urgent threats posed by Sahel-based jihadist groups stem from the destabilization of key regional partners,” he tells The Cipher Brief. “Once among the strongest U.S. allies in counterterrorism, these governments have shifted rapidly from fragile democracies to military juntas, fueled in part by the failures of Western-backed security initiatives. That has sidelined the United States as anti-Western sentiment grows.”

Andrew Lewis, president of the operational intelligence firm Ulysses Group, agrees that the power vacuum extends beyond the battlefield.

“In the truest sense, the U.S. has limited national security interests in the region. But we do have resource and energy interests that underpin our national security strategy — particularly in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso,” he tells The Cipher Brief. “The control of trade routes, ports, and export conduits of critical minerals is a strategic concern. We would like to see JNIM, ISIS, and their affiliates contained before they threaten those supply chains.”

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Tactical Adaptation and Regional Spillover

Over the last eighteen months, jihadist groups in the Sahel have evolved their tactics in ways that suggest a larger ambition. Motorcycles enable lightning raids across ungoverned stretches. Drone warfare — once limited to surveillance — has evolved into an offensive capability. JNIM has carried out more than 30 confirmed drone strikes since late 2023.

“Both al-Qaeda’s JNIM and the Islamic State’s Sahel Province have deployed suicide drones,” Weiss noted. “They’re also utilizing Starlink to stay connected in remote areas. Helping counter drones, exploiting Starlink’s vulnerabilities, and shutting off externally sourced financing would help the region tremendously.”

Carnes-Douglas also warns that “rapid technological advancements are increasingly shaping warfare.”

“Drones and Starlink-enabled communications stand out as particularly transformative, yet both regional security forces and U.S. capabilities lag significantly behind,” he continued, pointing out that lessons from Ukraine “demonstrate how these technologies are quickly adapted for combat,” and their proliferation “signals that warfare in the Sahel is entering a transitional, high-tech phase.”

Schindler underscores a connected, transnational risk.

“The Sahel region is also a key network hub for the international drug transportation pipeline of Hezbollah-linked drugs that are transported from South America via West Africa to Europe for sale there,” he explained. “This pipeline directly funds Hezbollah’s activities in Lebanon. Given the central role that the U.S. is playing in the current negotiations between Hezbollah and Israel, this income stream for Hezbollah will continue to ensure that this terror group will be able to continue to fund its activities both within Lebanon and beyond.”

Across Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, militants are consolidating control.

“Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has long used the tri-border area to evade interdiction,” Carnes-Douglas explained. “That makes coordinated regional responses not just useful but necessary.”

The violence, however, is also spilling outward.

“Sahelian jihadis are now inching closer to Senegal,” Weiss said. “They’re creating a jihadist land bridge between the Sahel, littoral West Africa, and Nigeria — effectively one large area of jihadist operations encompassing a significant chunk of the continent.”

This expansion also has a sectarian dimension. Lewis surmised that more than 50,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria since 2009, “with more than 7,000 killed in 2025 alone.”

“It’s difficult to assess the true scale of persecution Islamist militant groups are carrying out,” he underscored. “But it’s happening.”

Schindler also highlights an alarming operational trend: “Currently they are not only able to conduct multi-layered attacks against single targets (such as a military camp) but also to conduct simultaneous and coordinated attacks on multiple targets across relatively large geographic areas.”

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U.S. Policy Today: A Detachment Problem?

For years, the U.S. viewed the Sahel as a key front in counterterrorism, maintaining drone bases and training missions in Niger. But the 2023 coup upended that equation. Washington froze over $500 million in aid and limited cooperation even as the junta expanded ties with Russia’s Wagner Group. The result is a fragile balance between limited engagement and strategic erosion.

“Outside of JSOC, U.S. efforts in the region have been marginal at best. That’s evident in the surge in violence and the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States, which pivoted away from the West to Russia,” Lewis said. “None of our 333 programs in the region has dented terror operations. We rely heavily on intelligence-led frameworks but have very little real-time intelligence since withdrawing key assets from Niger.”

Carnes-Douglas echoes that concern. “American counterterrorism efforts have achieved tactical successes but strategic failures,” he observed. “Short-term gains from drone strikes or training are constantly undermined by state fragility, coups, and shifting alliances.”

Moreover, while France’s drawdown from Operation Barkhane — the 2014–2022 French-led counterterrorism campaign across the Sahel that deployed more than 5,000 troops to combat Islamist insurgencies in Mali, Niger, and Chad — created a vacuum, “the U.S. has not yet developed a sustainable replacement strategy,” Weiss stressed. “There are some indications the U.S. has resumed limited intel support to Sahelian juntas, but nothing that matches previous levels of engagement,” he continued.

Schindler argues that the disengagement itself has worsened the crisis.

“Although a lot of criticism has been levied against the UN, EU and US counter terrorism operations in West Africa and the Sahel in the past, the current situation, in which the UN, the EU and the US have largely disengaged from the region clearly demonstrates that overall, the counterterrorism efforts had been successful in stemming the tide of terrorist expansion in the region,” he said.

A Strategic Imperative: What Must Washington Do Next

Analysts emphasize that the path forward requires reimagining engagement. Weiss argues that U.S. support should focus on technology denial and intelligence integration, not just kinetic strikes.

“Helping counter drones, exploiting the use of Starlink and the data vulnerabilities therein, and helping to shut off externally sourced financing would help the region tremendously,” he said.

Washington, Lewis highlighted, must also think pragmatically about force posture.

“If we want to contain JNIM and ISIS, the focus should be on protecting the coastal regions with ISR and targeted strikes where success is measured by territory denied, not by how many host forces we train,” he said. “But that requires basing rights, logistics, and political will, and China and Russia hold significant leverage over potential host countries.”

Indeed, Beijing’s influence looms large.

“China has financed major ports, railways, and industrial projects across Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Senegal,” Lewis explained, noting that this gives it immense leverage to counter U.S. influence and deny access to infrastructure critical for forward operations.

Carnes-Douglas, meanwhile, advocates for a recalibrated diplomacy that acknowledges political realities.

“Although U.S. foreign policy appears to be shifting away from involvement in these conflicts, Washington should recommit pragmatically to directly limit jihadist groups’ ability to threaten American interests,” he asserted. “This, in turn, would form stronger relationships with the newly formed governments and in turn could be an industrial and economic boon, as well benefiting all partners.”

Schindler proposes a containment-first approach, prioritizing direct engagement with the littoral Gulf of Guinea states.

“One primary goal should be containment, ensuring that the expansion of terrorist activities and control in the region does not affect additional countries, in particular the littoral states of the Gulf of Guinea,” he said.

The slaughter at Manda, the border ambushes, the drone blitzes — all are signs of a metastasizing threat.

“Through the increasing influence and power of these terrorist affiliates in the Sahel region, the threat to US interests in the region, as well as potentially to the US homeland, is increasing in parallel,” he added.

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