Stated · Vigil assessment
Objectives
What the 9 actors this module authors a posture for are trying to achieve — stated positions and Vigil’s assessments, kept apart. Every other party appears under Profiles without one.
Regional system
InsurgencyHumanitarianForeign interventionCorridorState fragility
Parties7 groups, and what each one means
- AES states & allied forcesThe three Alliance of Sahel States military governments and their national armed forces, together with allied communal self-defence forces. Coverage of Burkina Faso and Niger is thin at this stage; the camp is named for what it is, not for what is yet published about it. Colour marks the camp, not endorsement.
- External security partnersForeign forces and suppliers fighting alongside or arming the AES states — the Russian presence, Wagner then Africa Corps, and the drone supply relationship with Türkiye. Deliberately a separate camp from the states they support: the partnership carries no governance conditions, publishes no accounting, and answers to no Sahelian authority, and a shared colour would assert an integration that does not exist.
- Azawad movementsThe separatist and allied northern movements — today unified in the FLA — whose project is self-determination for Azawad, not religious rule. A distinct camp from JNIM even where they currently fight alongside it.
- JNIM & lineageThe al-Qaeda-aligned coalition and its predecessor organisations. Distinct from Islamic State Sahel, with which it is at war.
- Islamic State SahelThe Islamic State's Sahel province — a separate project, and a battlefield rival of JNIM. Its own organisation spans the Mali–Burkina Faso–Niger borders rather than sitting inside any of them. Deliberately never merged into a generic "jihadist" bloc.
- Regional & internationalThe French, UN, European and regional forces of the intervention era, and the outside states and organisations — Algeria, ECOWAS, the Gulf — whose choices shape the system without fighting in it. Most are historical in Mali. ECOWAS sits here rather than with the states because the AES exit made it a counterparty, not a member organisation.
- External support to the northern movementsExternal actors reported to support the Azawad movements, kept apart from the external partners of the AES states because they are not on the same side and must not be coloured as though they were. One entry, and it is here because the claim is contested rather than settled: three Sahel governments and Moscow allege Ukrainian support to the northern movements, Kyiv has denied substantial cooperation since 2024, and participants in one outlet's reporting describe it as real. The camp records that disagreement; it does not resolve it, and nothing in it is graded as established presence.
The Kennedy Bridge over the Niger at Niamey, 24 February 2019, in harmattan haze. One of two road crossings of the river in the capital, and the link between the city and the Tillabéri districts on the right bank.NigerTZai · CC BY-SA 4.0 · resizedImage: A long low road bridge on piers crossing a wide river in dusty haze, with reed beds in the foreground and a wooded bank beyond.
Current state
Where this conflict stands
Graded per item · As of 2026-08
The central Sahel is one conflict system worked by three states, not three national wars: jihadist insurgency that crosses every border, Azawad separatism, military rule in all three capitals, foreign security partnerships without conditions, a confederation built to replace the regional order it walked out of, humanitarian emergency and economic siege — all running at once. There is no clean front line. States hold the cities while the roads between them are contested, and in 2026 both northern Mali and the approaches to its capital came under pressure at the same time. Coverage here is deepest on Mali; Burkina Faso and Niger carry baselines rather than equivalent depth, and the country lens says by how much.
Jan 2012
Rebellion begins
5.1M
People in need (OCHA est.)
~415,000
Internally displaced (est.)
~80%
Gold share of exports
Coverageby country and by arena
- Mali103 recordsThe module's origin and its deepest coverage: insurgency in three directions, a reversed northern settlement, and an economy under blockade.
- Burkina Faso24 recordsThe region's largest displacement crisis and its largest armed mobilisation of civilians. A baseline: the transition, the armed forces, the VDP, the four-year encirclement of Djibo and the corridor system. Not yet Malian depth.
- Niger28 recordsThe eastern member of the confederation — the Tillabéri borderlands, the uranium dispute, the closed Beninese corridor, and the base where Russia's force and the AES joint command sit together. A baseline, not yet depth.
- Regional — applies to all three9 recordsThe confederation and its relations with ECOWAS, the two cross-border jihadist organisations, and the tri-border borderlands. These name no single country because they concern all of them — read them under every lens, not none.
Counts cover this module’s mapped places, events, zones, campaigns, terrain, corridors, impact chains and actor profiles. A country count is what is specifically about that country; it is not the whole of what bears on it.
And by arena
State authority and military ruleNorthern Mali / AzawadCentral Mali and the deltaThe Liptako-Gourma borderlandsCorridors and access pressure
Two dimensions, deliberately not the same one. An arena is the mechanism a record belongs to; a country is whose territory it concerns. Naming the arenas after the three states would have rebuilt three national modules inside one, and lost the cross-border explanation this module exists for.
Backgroundwhy this matters, and the conflict in 6 points
Why it matters
The central Sahel is where the collapse of a state is being tested in slow motion, three times over, and the answers are travelling. An insurgency here is strangling a national economy by burning fuel trucks on roads that also carry a quarter of Senegal's exports; a separatist movement and a jihadist coalition with incompatible aims are fighting side by side; three military governments have swapped Western partners for Russian ones with no conditions attached and built a confederation to make the break permanent; and five million people in Mali alone need humanitarian assistance in a response funded at a fifth of what it asks for. The borders are the one thing the armed groups do not respect and the states cannot ignore. If you want to understand how modern insurgencies win without taking cities — and what happens to civilians while they do — this is the clearest case available.
The conflict in five minutes
6 points, composed from this conflict’s own sourced records — nothing here is a new claim.
It is not one war, and not two sides
Six camps operate at once: three military governments and their armies, the external partners fighting alongside them on their own terms, a separatist movement in northern Mali, an al-Qaeda-aligned coalition, an Islamic State province at war with that coalition, and the regional and international actors whose choices shape all of it. "Government versus terrorists" gets the conflict wrong at the first step.
It started in 2012 with a rebellion that lost control of itself
Libya's collapse sent home armed, experienced fighters. Tuareg separatists and jihadists rebelled together in January 2012, the army overthrew the government in March for failing the war, and by July the jihadists had expelled their separatist allies from every city. Connected, never identical — the most important distinction about Mali.
France stopped the collapse and settled nothing
A jihadist column moving on the road south in January 2013 brought French intervention within hours. It broke the occupation in weeks. The enemy traded terrain for time and outlasted every force sent against it — France left in 2022, the UN was expelled in 2023.
The real war is on the roads, not in the cities
The state holds the towns; its enemies hold the space between them. JNIM declared a blockade of the fuel corridors from Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire in September 2025 and has burned hundreds of tankers on them, degrading power and prices in the capital without taking a single city. It has not run unbroken: pressure eased in early 2026 and a full blockade was reimposed on 28 April.
2026 reversed the government's signature achievement
In April a joint FLA–JNIM offensive took Kidal, killed the defence minister at Kati, and pushed attacks to the capital's approaches. A July wave besieged Anéfis; the army retook it after six days. Reach was demonstrated — durable control was not.
The humanitarian crisis is the medium, not the side-effect
Around 5.1 million people need assistance and about 415,000 are displaced. Hunger here is a logistics problem before it is a harvest problem — and the same insecurity that causes it blocks the response, which was funded at roughly 21% in 2025.
The system, as analytical objects What Vigil assesses about Sahel, as 7 selectable objects. Each carries its own claims, registers, grades and dates, and each opens as itself in Explore — not as a section index.Open Sahel in Explore
Vigil assessment
Constraints
What limits those options. A constraint is a structural limit, not a risk rating.
Vigil assessment · Observed
Trajectory
The module’s current phase — Renewed nationwide pressure (2025 – 2026) — and the newest dated review.
Vigil assessment
External relationships
The standing arrangements this module authors between its parties. Each line is the record’s own signature; the analysis, dates and sources are on the record.
Observed
What matters now
The standing questions Vigil is following on this module, each with what its latest review found. The evidence that would change the assessment is on the question.
Vigil assessment · Observed
Economy
5 exposure channels and 5 watch items, as of 2026-08.
Vigil assessment · Observed
Humanitarian
11 dated figures at regional granularity, each with its own basis, as of 2026-08. No operational detail is published.
Latest The newest published work on this area. Coverage reviewed 2026-10-11.Every dated review
Sahel developments — 11 October 2026
Mali's army re-entered Kidal on 6 October, five months after losing it, and as in April the town changed hands without a battle for it. After weeks of air and drone strikes, the FLA announced a temporary "strategic withdrawal". One of its cadres said the decision was taken with JNIM, which did not fight for the town. Africa Corps took part, and the government says it is consolidating. It is the first documented return to a position given up in 2026, but the FLA and JNIM still hold the desert around a nearly empty town. In Niger, Algeria's defence ministry said it sent fighter aircraft to Niamey at Niger's request during the August mutiny, and its president confirmed it. Burkina Faso was again swept thinly, and no attack on a supply convoy was found.
Mali's regeneration problem: the positions that do not come back
The Malian army reinforces and holds its hubs. Since mid-2025 it has not been documented re-establishing a single outlying camp it lost — and at Dioura, on 10 September, no relief column was reported at all.
Theatre map Interactive · approximate · as of 2026-08. Every marker here is a record, and the same markers are selectable in Explore's geography mode with the record open beside them.Open the map in Explore
Changed in brief — 2026-10-11 · Map updated
Influence and activity zones
Zone coverage: Mali only · Burkina Faso and Niger pending evidence — an undrawn country is an absence of published geometry, not of activity.
Loading map…
Interactive map — tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO. Markers show broad, publicly documented locations; sensitive sites are generalized to area level. Zone fills, where shown, are broad and approximate context with their own dates and confidence — never precise boundaries. The map does not show current deployments, activity or operational readiness, and is not suitable for operational use. Status is dated and contextual — see the methodology.
Influence and activity zones: broad · approximate · as of 2026-07 · Confidence: graded per zone
Influence and activity zones: broad · approximate · as of 2026-07 · Confidence: graded per zone
Zone legend — Influence and activity zones
Sahel zones show broad influence, activity, access pressure, or administrative context. They do not represent precise territorial control — influence and activity are not the same as control.
- Government-administered core — Cities and regions under state administration; rural margins pressured. As of 2026-07 · Confidence: Moderate.
- JNIM activity areas — Reported JNIM operating and attack-reach areas — not held territory. As of 2026-07 · Confidence: Moderate.
- Islamic State Sahel activity areas — Reported Islamic State Sahel activity areas — not held territory. As of 2026-07 · Confidence: Moderate.
- Azawad activity zones — Reported FLA activity and presence — not held territory. As of 2026-07 · Confidence: Moderate.
- Contested corridors — Broad bands along contested supply and trade arteries — not routes. As of 2026-07 · Confidence: Moderate.
Watch 12 standing questions on Sahel — 6 moved in the current review window, last reviewed 2026-10-11.All 12 Watch questions
- Is JNIM moving from raids to sustained territorial administration?
- Is the Russian presence growing, static or contracting — per state?
- Are the three states becoming more dependent on Russian sustainment?
- Do the three transitions hold against their own armies?
- Does corridor pressure tighten or ease?
- Does the confederation do anything its members could not?
- Is external support to the northern movements a real and continuing arrangement — and can it ever be shown to be?
- Is Islamic State Sahel's pressure in western Niger reaching the capital's approaches and the export infrastructure?
4 local entriesrecord-specific tests on the module’s standing watch list
Does documented conduct ever get a response?
Two Africa Corps civilian-harm cases were documented three weeks apart in 2026 — Kyrnia on 31 July and Bombori on 20 August — each put in writing to the Russian and Malian defence ministries, and neither answered. The same question applies to Burkina Faso, where the VDP carries a documented record of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and sexual violence disproportionately affecting Fulani communities, and to Niger, where conflict-data analysis ranks the national military second among perpetrators of civilian killings in Tillabéri. Watch whether any investigation, denial or official response follows any case anywhere in the region. The absence of a channel is the finding; a first response would be a change in the system, not merely in a file.
Is the crisis still being counted?
Burkina Faso hosts roughly three quarters of the region's displaced people and has published no consolidated displacement count since March 2023 — the figure quoted against 2026 datelines is three years old. Mali's and Burkina Faso's people-in-need totals both fell on methodology changes that the responsible agency states do not indicate improvement. Watch whether official registration resumes, whether access-based targeting is abandoned, and whether the funding gap narrows. A crisis that stops being measured does not stop.
Does the Mali–Algeria reset produce mediation?
Ambassadors and airspace returned in July 2026, and the prime minister was in Algiers in late August. Restoring ties is not restoring a peace process, and the drone case Mali filed at the International Court of Justice has not been withdrawn: watch whether Algiers re-enters northern mediation, whether the ICJ case is discontinued, and whether border dynamics around Tinzaouatène change.
Does Islamic State Sahel exploit the fight?
IS-Sahel gains most when its enemies are busy with each other. It joined the April 2026 offensive three days late, took Labbezanga once the garrison had gone, entered Ménaka town and then withdrew — reach without holding. Watch the tri-border zone and the Gao–Niamey axis, and watch whether an incursion is ever followed by administration.
Evidence and review status
- Coverage reviewed
- 2026-10-11— the date of this area’s most recent dated Weekly Brief. It records a review of the area as a whole, not a revalidation of every underlying record; each record carries its own date.
- Standing baseline
- 2026-08 — the date this conflict’s standing geographic and situational claims are drawn to. Individual records, figures and events carry their own dates.
- Review cadence
- Weekly review / event-driven updates — quiet weeks are published as quiet reviews rather than as silence.
Scope of this coverage. This is regional-system coverage, not a conventional frontline map — no single front exists to draw. It explains the central Sahel through insurgency, state authority, separatist legacies, foreign security partnerships, corridors and humanitarian pressure, across five linked arenas and three country lenses. Coverage is deepest on Mali by a wide margin: Burkina Faso and Niger carry baselines — the states, their forces, their corridors and the mechanisms that define them — rather than equivalent depth, and the country lens reports the ratio rather than padding it.
Source registryMethodology Corrections logGlossary
Found an error in Sahel coverage? Corrections are logged in public with the date and what changed — see the corrections log.