The Sahel Outgrew the War on Terror’s Map

ACLED has logged 2,145 violent events involving jihadist groups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger so far in 2026, after recording 2,845 in 2025 and 63 in 2016. If the current pace continues, the annual count would exceed 3,000. Separately, the United Nations recorded more than 9,000 deaths from security incidents across the three countries in 2025.

The figures describe a sharp regional concentration, not a complete ledger of motive or control. Event monitors depend on reports that are harder to obtain in remote or contested areas, and an incident with an armed group present is not identical to a verified terrorist attack by that group. A straight-line annual projection can also be broken by offensives, ceasefires, seasonal access or reporting gaps.

The map on the ground

The territorial evidence nevertheless demands attention. In April, the al-Qaida-linked Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin and the Tuareg-dominated Azawad Liberation Front launched a joint offensive in Mali. Fighters attacked strategic towns, government forces and Russian auxiliaries with ambushes, car bombs, drones and raids. Mali’s defence minister died in a suicide attack at his Kati residence, the military-intelligence chief was killed, the international airport was attacked, and rebels took Kidal after soldiers fled and Russian mercenaries surrendered.

Those events unfold while the United States marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks. The anniversary naturally returns political attention to New York, Washington, Afghanistan and the institutions built around that history. But an anniversary can preserve an old map after the violence has moved. Al-Qaida is comparatively diminished in some theaters associated with the first war-on-terror era while an affiliate expands across the Sahel’s borders and weak state peripheries.

Pressure and its limits

The strongest case for sustained military pressure is direct. Armed groups that can seize cities, kill senior officials, attack airports and move across borders cannot be answered by development policy alone. Governments need forces able to protect roads and towns, disrupt supply lines and prevent spectacular victories from becoming recruitment campaigns.

Yet military pressure can fail on its own terms when civilian harm creates grievances, military governments lack legitimacy, foreign withdrawals remove intelligence or logistical capacity, and state forces cannot remain after an operation ends. Displaced communities measure control less by communiqués than by whether they can return home, reach markets and use roads without paying an armed group or risking attack. Recruitment grows in that gap between a flag on a map and government in daily life.

The next figures should therefore track more than attacks and fatalities. Watch whether armed groups hold Kidal and other towns through repeated counteroffensives, collect taxes, regulate roads, sustain supply routes and replace local administration; watch whether schools and markets reopen, displaced residents return, and state forces remain without escalating abuse. If those indicators persist, this is not another temporary spike. If they recede, the offensive may still prove reversible. The old counterterror map cannot answer that question for the Sahel.