What is the Sahel conflict?

Your Saturday deep dive.

We covered the war in Africa’s Sahel region regularly in Proximities before the newsletter went on hiatus. And, since then, it has only heated up.

The region is often described as the world’s epicenter of terrorist activity. In 2025, the Global Terror Index said more than half of all “terrorism-related deaths” happened in the Sahel. There are fears the conflict could engulf all of West Africa.

It’s complicated and it rarely makes top news so I thought it might be helpful to break it down in a simple Q&A format for this Saturday’s deep dive.

I hope you find it useful and it provides context for future Proximities entries.

Until next Saturday,

Barry.

***

Where is the Sahel?

The Sahel is a vast semi-arid region that stretches across the African continent. But the conflict centers on an area known as the triangle, or the tri-border region, where Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali meet. Its location allows the biggest of the rebel groups to engage in a war with three governments at once.

What is the background to the conflict and what is it about?

This is a complicated question because there are so many parties involved. The embers of the conflict can be traced back to 2011 when the war in Libya sparked insecurity in neighboring countries and led to an abundance of weaponry becoming available to armed groups, particularly Tuareg rebels who wanted greater autonomy in Mali. The Tuareg very nearly toppled the government before being pushed into the desert with the help of French military air raids.

Within a couple of years, the conflict spread from Mali into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger as several Islamist rebel groups were formed and began capturing territory. The militias, many of whom declare allegiance to al-Qaeda or ISIS, are fighting to overthrow the governments and introduce a system based on their strict interpretation of Islamic law. Several already control significant territory, with some effectively acting as shadow governments, taxing the local population, running courts and schools, and engaging in dispute resolution.

Some of the groups also fight each other.

The biggest often have substantial resources earned through taxation, cattle rustling, hijackings, kidnapping, gold mining, and other means.

Insecurity, atrocities by governments against populations they view as hostile, and widespread poverty have helped them win support from local populations.