Unravelling the illicit economies that sustain terrorism in the Sahel
The African Union is uniquely positioned to lead coordinated responses that disrupt criminal networks, strengthen border security and cut arms flows.
The Sahel region faces complex security crises driven by violent extremism, farmer-herder conflicts and banditry. Extremism is the major driver of violence. According to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index, the Sahel accounts for 51% of global terrorism-related deaths.
The death toll from terrorism is a major concern, but so too should be the illicit economies enabling and sustaining violent extremism.
The region’s significant gold deposits draw global attention and facilitate illegal economies that thrive amid regional instability. According to a 2023 United Nations report, artisanal and small-scale gold mining, often unlawful, accounted for about 50% of the region’s gold production. This robs states of billions in revenue and plays into the hands of groups that control mining communities and smuggling routes.
With over 1.8 million people in the Sahel relying on mining for their livelihoods, violent extremists and bandits jostle for control of lucrative mining sites for financial gain and to recruit supporters.
Violent extremist groups like Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State – Sahel Province step into governance vacuums, controlling territories and markets. They impose taxes and protection fees on miners and communities, ostensibly to shield them from rival groups, but in effect, consolidating their control over resource-rich areas.
In localities under their influence, JNIM – a coalition of five al-Qaeda-affiliated groups – practises strategic governance to secure civilian support. It negates state regulations by permitting mining and logging in restricted natural reserves, often in hazardous conditions. This buys them the support of locals frustrated by restrictive state policies or bureaucratic delays in obtaining licences.
The sharing of routes by terrorists and traffickers blurs the line between ideological and profit-driven motives
In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, miners collaborate with armed groups out of necessity and preference, deepening extremist influence and undermining state authority. JNIM has a vast membership across all three countries, with an increasing foothold in coastal states such as Togo, Benin and Côte d’Ivoire. This enables it to control gold smuggling routes with the complicity of international criminal networks that benefit from the chaos.
The illicit arms trade deepens the influence of criminal groups in the Sahel. About 12 million illegal weapons are circulating in West Africa, with seizures revealing small arms, live ammunition, improvised explosive devices, drones and rocket-propelled grenades.
Beyond Libya’s post-conflict stockpiles, reports show that losses from the battlefield and through corrupt officials are key sources of arms. Markets reportedly thrive in tri-border towns such as Mallam Fatori (Nigeria), Tin Zaoutine (Algeria), Téra (Niger), Murzuq (Libya), Gaya (Niger) and Porga (Benin).
The demand for weapons in the Sahel is not only from violent extremists and separatists, but also from ordinary citizens left vulnerable by inadequate state security.
Armed vigilante groups are widespread, providing informal neighbourhood protection against terrorists and bandits. But they often exacerbate the violence by carrying out ethnic and discriminatory profiling. In Mali, vigilantes such as the Dan Na Ambassagou and Fulani communities are locked in cycles of reprisal attacks over suspicion of the latter’s ties with JNIM forces.
Weapons used in these skirmishes are sourced from markets controlled by those who thrive on instability. Artisanal arms production is also rising, with 60% of firearms seized from civilians in Burkina Faso in 2016 and 2017 locally crafted.
Through its convening power, the AU could bring together AES and ECOWAS members to tackle organised crime
Unlawful arms proliferation has obliterated opportunities for dialogue, leading to protracted inter-communal violence and farmer-herder crises. As arms flow in, people flee. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that about five million people have been forcibly displaced and another 33 million need humanitarian support. All are vulnerable to exploitation through forced labour, sex trafficking and migrant smuggling.
Youths disillusioned by the region’s economic, governance and security crises have turned to substance abuse. Low-cost drugs such as tramadol and other synthetic opioids are creating dependency and susceptibility to recruitment by criminal networks. JNIM’s affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, taxes drug-smuggling routes to fund its activities.
The sharing of routes by violent extremists and arms, drug and human traffickers blurs the line between ideological and profit-driven motives. Disrupting these networks requires targeted policies to strengthen border security and community safety, regulate artisanal arms production, and address the socioeconomic drivers of youth radicalisation.
The Sahel’s organised crime and extremism crisis stems not from a lack of legislation, but the limited capacity of governments to implement existing laws. Vast ungoverned spaces, socioeconomic conditions that breed corruption and protracted insecurity, enable illicit economies to thrive.
Recent coups and junta-led governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger reflect decades of national, regional and continental failures to address the drivers of crime and extremism. Their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to form their own Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has fragmented regional cooperation and sets back regional security efforts.
The PSC could urge member states to adopt measures that shrink extremists’ resource and recruitment base
The African Union (AU) is uniquely positioned to lead coordinated responses. Yet its efforts are hampered by a reluctance to act when states transgress its governance norms, and the decade-plus delay in deploying a counter-terrorism force in the Sahel.
The AU must prioritise engagement with the AES countries, especially to resolve underlying conflicts such as Mali’s secessionist crisis, and disrupt extremist and criminal structures that sustain illegal markets. Through its convening power, the AU could bring together AES and ECOWAS members to tackle transnational organised crime.
Reviving the AU’s 2013 Nouakchott Process against terrorism and organised crime also offers a solution – but only if the AU goes the extra mile in the Sahel. Success hinges on overcoming mistrust, sharing intelligence, implementing joint border patrols and targeting criminal and extremist enclaves.
The AU Peace and Security Council could urge the region’s member states to adopt measures that shrink extremist groups’ resource and recruitment base. Coordinated hotspot assessments of trafficking routes and extremist strongholds are crucial to minimise civilian harm, while rigorous stockpile management could curb the diversion of arms through looting or corruption.
Addressing the socioeconomic drivers of crime is also vital. The AU must mobilise funds to launch youth-centred economic development, especially in border communities, that offer alternatives to illegal mining, smuggling and extremism.
This article was first published in the ISS’ PSC Report.
Exclusive rights to re-publish ISS Today articles have been given to Daily Maverick in South Africa and Premium Times in Nigeria. For media based outside South Africa and Nigeria that want to re-publish articles, or for queries about our re-publishing policy, email us.
