The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), a global conflict monitoring group, has warned that terrorism in the Sahel is spreading into Africa’s western coastal states.

In its conflict watchlist for 2026, ACLED highlighted the “consolidation of a new front line in the Benin, Niger, and Nigeria borderlands, which is now strategically important for both Sahelian and Nigerian militant groups.”

The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) have “entrenched their presence in this tri-border area, transforming it into a conflict hotspot with implications for both the Sahel and coastal West Africa.”

The NGO noted that Sahelian and Nigerian terrorists are gradually merging into a “single, interconnected conflict environment stretching from Mali to western Nigeria.”

Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have already endured years of insurgencies by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates. ACLED reported that “political violence” killed more than 10,000 people in these three countries in 2025 alone.

Kidnapping campaigns targeting foreigners surged in Mali and Niger, while terrorist groups escalated attacks across the central Sahel, shaking the fragile military juntas that rule the region.

Northern Benin, bordering Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, suffered its “deadliest year on record,” with nearly 70% more deaths than in the first 11 months of 2024.

In Mali, terrorists staged a fuel blockade in September, attacking convoys for weeks.

Violence then spread to the country’s south and west, reaching the highest monthly levels since ACLED began recording data in 1997.

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