Armed groups in the Sahel are exploiting tensions between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) as they continue to expand their reach in West Africa.
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger left ECOWAS in 2024, and the countries’ leaders announced that they would form their own mutual defense pact to fight insurgents. Analysts say the ongoing absence of AES countries from regional organizations has allowed terror organizations to thrive across West Africa.
Intensifying Terrorism
The ISSP, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and other Boko Haram splinter factions are driving the violence that has been spreading southward and westward. The Africa Report magazine recently highlighted three areas of intensifying terrorism.
In the borderlands between Benin, which is an ECOWAS member, Burkina Faso and Niger, Hanifa, a JNIM unit, began gaining momentum around the Pendjari and W national parks in early 2025. The group killed 54 Beninese Soldiers in the W national park in April 2025. It often targets critical transit corridors between the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea.
Beninese President Patrice Talon told Jeune Afrique magazine that terrorists are thriving due to a lack of cooperation between the three countries.
“As far as we are concerned, there is none,” Talon said of cooperation. “We regularly follow up, explaining that security cooperation would not only help us escape the asymmetric conflict we are suffering, but would also serve their security interests. We got no response.”
Another zone of insecurity is forming between Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo, which is an ECOWAS member. JNIM began expanding into Togo’s Savanes region last year.
“The absence of cooperation between Benin and Burkina Faso, on the one hand, and the weak collaboration between Benin and Togo, on the other — though both are ECOWAS members with opaque relations — favors the entrenchment of jihadism in another rapidly expanding border area,” Seidik Abba, a Sahel specialist and president of the Centre International de Réflexion et d’Etudes sur le Sahel (CIRES), told The Africa Report.
Over the past year, terrorist groups, particularly JNIM, also have bolstered their presence in areas between Benin, Niger and ECOWAS member Nigeria. JNIM carried out its first attack in Nigeria in late October, when it killed a Nigerian Soldier in Kwara State. The Jamestown Foundation think tank recently reported on a possible relationship in Nigeria between JNIM and the Lakurawa terrorist group, which also is believed to cooperate with ISSP.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, these border areas might experience intense fighting among terror groups this year.
“Factions such as JNIM, EIGS [Islamic State in the Greater Sahara], Ansaru, Mahmuda, Islamic State in West Africa, as well as criminal groups, are increasingly rubbing shoulders in these borderlands,” the organization noted in a December 2025 report.
Geopolitical Quagmire
As noted by The Africa Report, geopolitics compounds mistrust among ECOWAS and AES countries. ECOWAS countries have sought to maintain traditional partnerships with Western allies, while AES states have aligned with Russia and others.
Friction arose December 8, 2025, when a Nigerian cargo aircraft landed without prior authorization in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. Although Nigeria’s military cited a technical problem, Burkinabe authorities detained two pilots and nine Soldiers, saying that the aircraft had violated their airspace. The AES denounced the incident as an “unfriendly act,” put their air defenses on maximum alert and authorized them to “neutralize any aircraft that violates confederal airspace.”
On December 14, 2025, ECOWAS heads of state decided to “maintain dialogue with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger with a view to effective and strengthened collaboration in the face of the deteriorating security situation.”
However, tensions between Benin’s Talon and Niger’s Tiani are particularly hostile over Benin’s connection with France.
“As long as these patrons pursue divergent agendas, tensions will persist,” Abba told The Africa Report. “The only way out lies in states’ ability to free themselves from external influences and put their peoples’ interests above alignment politics.”
