How this African region became the hub of global jihad
How did a forgotten belt of Africa become the world's most dangerous breeding ground for jihadist violence? A belt of sand, poverty and forgotten wealth
How did a forgotten belt of Africa become the world's most dangerous breeding ground for jihadist violence? A belt of sand, poverty and forgotten wealth The Sahel stretches roughly 5,400 km (3,350 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea Al-Qaeda vs Islamic State Since 2020, countries including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have experienced military coups. JNIM: The group running the show Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wa-l-Muslimin (JNIM) is the Sahel's most powerful jihadist group and an affiliate of al-Qaeda, formed in 2017 through the merger of several Islamist factions Enter Russia A world left watching A warning for the world For two decades, the world's war on jihadism has been told through the ruins of Kabul, the streets of Mosul and the deserts of Syria.Yet while global attention remained fixed on the Middle East, the centre of gravity quietly shifted thousands of kilometres to the south. Today, it is not Iraq or Afghanistan but the vast, overlooked Sahel that has become the deadliest theatre of Islamist militancy.Here, extremist groups are no longer simply carrying out hit-and-run attacks; they are blockading capitals, governing villages, exploiting climate crises, toppling fragile states and outlasting foreign armies.Coups have redrawn political maps, Western powers have retreated, Russian mercenaries have moved in, and millions of civilians have found themselves trapped in a conflict that rarely commands international attention. The rise of global jihad's new epicentre did not happen overnight, nor was it inevitable.So how did a forgotten belt of Africa become the world's most dangerous breeding ground for jihadist violence?The Sahel is a transition zone, not a country. It runs in a band roughly 5,000 kilometres wide, from Senegal and Mauritania on the Atlantic coast, through Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, across Chad, and on towards Sudan and Eritrea.To the north sits the Sahara, the largest hot desert on Earth. To the south lie the greener, wetter tropics. The Sahel is the seam between the two, and seams are always where things fray first.Its population is young and growing fast, among the fastest-growing anywhere on the planet. That ought to be an asset. Instead it has become a pressure point, because jobs, schools and services haven't kept pace. Most Sahel states rank near the bottom of global development indices. Chad, Mali and Niger regularly appear among the world's most fragile states. Farming and herding remain the backbone of daily life for most people, which means most people are also directly exposed when rains fail or land runs short.And the land is running short. Temperatures across the Sahel are rising about one and a half times faster than the global average. Rivers shrink, pasture disappears, and farmers, herders and fishing communities are pushed into each other's space. These local resource fights sound small next to the word "jihad", but they are often the spark that jihadist groups exploit, turning old disputes over water and grazing rights into recruitment pitches.The irony is that the region is not actually poor in resources.
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