Junta-led Sahel trio likely to fail in its bid to contain escalating jihadist violence

The recent withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the regional ECOWAS bloc has drawn attention to the escalating security crisis in the Sahel region where JNIM, an umbrella coalition of  aligned groups, is fast emerging as a dominant jihadist force.
These countries, now members of the newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES), aim to address the growing jihadist violence that has plagued the region for nearly a decade. However, analysts argue that the new strategy may fail to achieve its intended objectives due to several underlying issues. The Sahel, already burdened with high unemployment, poor governance, and environmental challenges, has seen a rise in jihadist groups, notably Al-Qaeda’s Sahel branch, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which “is now emerging as the region’s dominant jihadist force,” according a recent analysis by the Washington-based North Africa Journal. “Even the brutal Islamic State has been largely unable to contain JNIM’s expansion, which has been expanding its control across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger,” the analysis notes.
While the AES has formed a joint military force of 5,000 troops to tackle this threat, its prospects appear slim. The region’s poverty, with GDP per capita significantly below the global average, poses a severe obstacle to maintaining and funding the force. Additionally, the region’s militaries have been criticized for human rights abuses, undermining the effectiveness of their counterinsurgency efforts. Meanwhile, AES states have increasingly relied on Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group for support, which raises concerns about its long-term impacts on governance, sovereignty, and regional power dynamics.
Tensions between AES members and their counterparts from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have worsened, as diplomatic disputes and accusations of covert actions against each other further exacerbate instability. As the threat from jihadist groups intensifies, the AES’s reliance on military force, without addressing the root causes of insecurity, may only deepen the crisis, leaving little room for hope of long-term peace and stability in the Sahel.