West Africa is becoming a silent powder keg that could explode into a cataclysmic situation in the next few years. As the world’s attention remains focused on Europe and the Indo-Pacific, Islamic extremist organizations are gaining traction and territory along Africa’s “coup belt.”
Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, all ruled by pro-Russian military juntas, are facing military defeats and setbacks by al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates. A spillover of the conflict could create a domino effect not only on the African continent but also in Europe and among various regional and world powers, all of which have vested interests in Africa.
Jihadist Foothold in the Maghreb
The Sahel region is haunted by a lack of political leadership, miscommunication amongst regional neighbors, and persistent military coups that have allowed extremist organizations to flourish. In the early 2010s, al-Qaeda’s Maghreb branch, AQIM, suffered degradation from counterterrorism operations in Algeria but found reinvigorated life from Mali’s instability.
Taking advantage of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion in Mali, jihadist groups affiliated with AQIM rapidly captured major Malian cities in the North and threatened to march South. In response to the jihadist threat, the West would conduct two major French-led interventions in Serval and Barkhane that pushed the al-Qaeda-led extremist factions back but did not defeat them fully.
Several Islamist militia factions and AQIM would formally merge to form Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) in 2017 to combat Malian, West African (ECOWAS), and Western forces, along with consolidating their remaining held areas. Using a lack of control on other neighboring borders, JNIM and later ISIS would spill over the insurgency into Burkina Faso, Niger, and others.
Rise of the Russian-Backed Juntas and Wagner Group Atrocities
The fight against JNIM and ISIS would take a major turn due to the rise of the coup belt, which is a domino effect of unstable governments being ousted by military officers, which led to hostile juntas across West Africa. Since 2020, coups have frequently taken place in Mali, Niger, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Gabon.
The blowback from the repeated coups became detrimental to countering ISIS and JNIM, as the military juntas refused cooperation with Western states that had the capabilities to target jihadists, train fledgling African militaries, and provide valuable intelligence. The Malian junta particularly ended collaboration with France and demanded a French withdrawal from their country, which Paris started in 2022, while the government denied being forced to leave.
Furthermore, the United States would lose its largest drone base on the continent in Niger as the Nigerian junta broke off military cooperation with Washington and demanded a withdrawal. The drift between the junta and the West left a powder keg that Russia would soon exploit.
The Kremlin dispatched the Wagner Group/Afrika Corps to prop up the juntas in the coup belt in a deal to provide ‘protection’ in return for resources. Outside of gas and oil, Russia also uses the black-market illicit resource trade from Africa to help fund its invasion of Ukraine.
Russian mercenaries are enshrined in atrocities along the coup belt, such as wholesale massacres of villages in Mali, sexual assaults, and using locals as slave labor to extract minerals. Furthermore, the presence of Russian mercenaries is turning Africa into another front of the Russo-Ukrainian War as Kyiv’s special forces conduct clandestine operations against the Afrika Korps in the region.
The Russian-backed Juntas Are Rapidly Losing Control
The aforementioned drift between regional blocs such as ECOWAS and Western states capable of providing resources that West African nations don’t have is having a detrimental effect on combating extremism in the region. In Mali, the brutality of the military junta and aligned African Corps mercenaries is now having a blowback, as both forces have attempted to subdue Tuareg separatists unsuccessfully.
In late July of 2024, several dozen Wagner and Malian junta soldiers were ambushed by Tuareg militia in Tinzaouaten, marking the deadliest ambush for Russian mercenaries in Africa in several years. Further losses have led to one-third of Malian territory either being contested or controlled by JNIM or ISIS as of 2025.
Niger’s junta government is also facing setbacks from extremist militias. Without U.S. advisors and the drone base supplementing local Niger forces, ISIS’s Sahel-affiliated IS-GS now has a foothold that encompasses Western Niger’s territory. Digressing from ECOWAS and having a diplomatic conflict with Nigeria, Niger no longer has cross-border cooperation on counterinsurgency operations, which Boko Haram, IS-GS, and JNIM are taking advantage of.
Burkina Faso’s security situation is rapidly deteriorating under Ibrahim Traore, the most pro-Russian junta leader in West Africa. Currently, 40% of Burkina Faso’s territory is under the control of or contested by JNIM.
Russia has been unable to stop the advance of the Islamist extremist groups through its Wagner and Africa Corps mercenaries due to several factors. With the war in Ukraine causing a plethora of equipment losses to the Russian military, Moscow has been unable to fulfill defense contracts of weapon exports to their allies and interests in Africa. After losing influence in Syria, the South Caucasus, and, to a lesser extent, Central Asia, the Kremlin could also lose its key West African juntas as their invasion of Ukraine ties down critical assets.
Implications for Africa and Europe
Growing regional instability in West Africa will have looming negative effects for outlying countries in the region. With the junta’s disengagement in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations with more experienced countries, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other extremist groups will continue to grow or perhaps even take over key provincial capitals, as seen with decades of combating extremism in Somalia.
Jihadist groups historically implemented archaic forms of sharia law that include frequent executions for minor infractions. Because of fears of what JNIM and ISIS will implement, along with atrocities committed by the junta, a brewing, exacerbated refugee crisis could unfold in both Africa and Europe.
Russia has used armed conflicts in Africa to its advantage, particularly due to the refugee crisis, which plays into Moscow’s hybrid warfare strategy. Using Islamist insurgencies that fuel the refugee crisis towards Europe plays into the Kremlin’s strategy of attempting to prop up pro-Russian political parties under the guise of anti-migration, as seen in Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, France, and others.
Regional security and stability are crucial to the interests of Africa, the West, and the East. The lack of governance enacted by the juntas, along with their failures in counterinsurgency, is now having negative consequences on the continent. Unless the coup-belt officers turn course and allow regional coordination to combat al-Qaeda and ISIS, the jihadists will continue to gain ground and perhaps create a major base of operations not seen since ISIS’s ‘caliphate’ that stretched across large swaths of Iraq and Syria.