The instances of governance failures throughout the Sahel and Horn of Africa are the primary factors in the distribution and embeddedness of the strong terrorist movements in 2025. The chronically unstable situations in such countries as Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger have weakened the legitimacy of the states and allowed the non-state actors to take their place.
Since 1960, the region has experienced more than 25 successful coups, with a second military seizure of power in Mali in 2020 and a constitutional crisis in Chad after the death in 2021 of President Idriss Deby. The fragility of formal institutions has made them unable to provide uniform services due to the instability. In rural states especially the government is either weak or completely absent. These failures in governance have cleared the way to extremist groups that implement their own forms of governance.
State capacity has also been undermined by corruption. Counterterrorism funds are often misplaced or misapplied and this reduces the effectiveness of the security forces. Armed forces that are undervalued or led by incompetent leaders tend to have difficulties in fending off insurgent attacks, especially in remote areas where the citizens bear the brunt of these attacks.
Security Vacuums And The Rise Of Terrorist-Militia Coalitions
One of the key results of weak states is that it results in huge security voids. Such gaps have enabled the terrorist groups to strengthen their controls within the ungoverned areas. Increasing the range of its operations, the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen (JNIM) have grown their numbers in the thousands between 2,000 and 3,000 combatants by 2025, compared to a few hundred fighters in 2018.
Today, over half of all the deaths of terrorism in the world occur in the Sahel region. In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, many rural areas are virtually beyond the control of governments and terrorist groups are imposing their own laws, tax collection and administration of such governance-like practices.
Militia Alliances And Criminal Networks
Making the security situation more complex is the fact that jihadist movements form alliances with local militias. Initially constituted to protect the community, ethnic militias have joined terrorist organizations to gain resources, defence or retaliation towards other communities and governments. This has also destabilized the area.
A lot of these networks are supported by the criminal economy. Militia groups smuggle drugs, weapons and individuals across borders without any consequences. The revenues of such illegal trades boost their arsenals and salaries of recruits, enabling such organizations as ISSP and JNIM to continue to rise and concentrate even upon the military pressure.
Humanitarian Impact And Community Alienation
The terrorism cost in Africa is very high. In the last one decade, an approximate number of 150,000 people have perished as a result of the conflict attributed to Islamic extremist groups. Both government and insurgents often find civilians in the border areas as their prey. An attack in January 2025 in the JNIM camp resulted in the killings of 28 Beninese soldiers, an important breakthrough of violence into coastal West Africa.
Eviction has become rampant. The UN documents that over three million are internally displaced in the Sahel. Families leave homes because they are frightened, starved and because repeated attacks by armed factions occur. Whole villages are even massacred in a single night.
Exploitation Of Youth And Children
Children and adolescents have also become the subjects of the attacks of terrorist groups. Others are orphans or displaced by violence and are not in a position to get an education and so can be easily recruited. In certain camps that are IS-related, close to 60 percent of the residents are of minor age with many having experienced trauma or have been coerced into it.
Youth recruited are brainwashed and trained into executing attacks, logistical support or domestic services. The violence cycle therefore reinvents itself in the subsequent generations growing up in warzones with no access to a traditional community or education system.
Regional And International Counterterrorism Strategies
Foreign military aid has been crucial in international responses, such as French-led operations, American drone attacks and EU training missions. Nevertheless, the departure of French forces in Mali in 2022 and the decreased involvement of the West in the Sahel has provided a security gap in which militant groups promptly took advantage of it.
There is an increasing argument by analysts that military force will not help in resolving the root causes of terrorism. In 2025, according to one of the reports of the peacebuilding of the AU:
“Africa’s stabilization must be African-led, with community focus, not foreign hardware.”
Local And Regional Initiatives
Regional alliances like the G5 Sahel Joint Force and Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) have been of little effect since they face problems with coordination, insufficient funding and poor logistical support. These agencies have been unable to act efficiently across the borders, and keep the insurgents under constant pressure.
However, increased calls are being made to invest back in regional intelligence-sharing and community-based work. These solutions in combination with reforms of governance and socioeconomic initiatives provide a more viable way to move on.
Militancy As Alternative Governance
Where governments have been unable to create a rule of law, terrorist groups have taken over. The violation of basic services, mediation of disputes and enforcing codes of conduct give the jihadist groups some form of legitimacy among disenfranchised populations.
JNIM has been reported to resolve land disputes and punish livestock theft in central Mali with rigid Sharia interpretations. These systems are considered to be brutal, but better than lawlessness or repressive interventions of a state by some communities.
Ethnic Mobilisation And Territorial Competition
Mobilization and the consolidation of territorial claims are often done by armies that identify themselves on the basis of ethnicity. This policy worsens the intercommunal differences and chances of a long-term conflict. Ethnic militia groups are competing over power and resources and the conflicts cause instability at the larger level.
This ethnic tension and jihadist element especially comes out in the north of Nigeria whereby Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are active with Fulani herder militias and local vigilantes. The ethnic, criminal and ideological motives are mixed, making peace efforts a challenge.
Moving Toward Durable Stability
The inability of weak states in Africa to counter terrorism is not merely a military problem but a structural problem. States that are not legitimate, transparent and inclusive cannot contain insurgent threats especially through corruption and neglect.
The long-term stability measures should consider the restoration of trust between the governments and the populations. It implies that it must deal with rural marginalization, invest in education and healthcare, and create economic prospects among the young people. This is important because to decrease the attractiveness of extremist options, it is necessary to restore rule of law, to provide clarity in governance, and to engage communities in the decision-making process.
African states cannot afford to be weak in an era where terrorist organizations are evolving at a rapid pace and using all gaps in governance to their benefit. The way forward will not just need international attention, but internal rekindling of legitimacy, regional collaboration and community based resilience to break down the pillars under which extremist groups flourish.
