Stated · Vigil assessment
Objectives
What the 6 actors with a published posture in this module are trying to achieve — stated positions and Vigil’s assessments, kept apart.
Regional system
InsurgencyHumanitarianForeign interventionCorridorState fragility
Parties6 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.
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
Changed in brief2026-09-06 · Status wording updated
Coverageby country and by arena
- Mali85 recordsThe module's origin and its deepest coverage: insurgency in three directions, a reversed northern settlement, and an economy under blockade.
- Burkina Faso9 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.
- Niger12 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 three7 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 deltaCorridors 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 objectsWhat 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 module’s own watch list, in the entries already written as open questions.
Vigil assessment · Observed
Economy
5 exposure channels and 5 watch items, as of 2026-08.
Vigil assessment · Observed
Humanitarian
11 measured figures at regional granularity, as of 2026-08. No operational detail is published.
LatestThe newest published work on this conflict. Conflict reviewed 2026-09-06.Every dated review
Sahel Regional System developments — 6 September 2026
Reviewed, and no material change identified. The nine standing files were each asked separately and none moved: the JNIM fuel blockade and the escorted-convoy arrangement continued on the terms recorded since June, no verified change in state reach or corridor status was identified in any of the three countries, the confederal parliament that met in Niamey until 29 August produced no further institutional step, and no response was recorded to either of the documented Africa Corps civilian-harm cases. This is a quiet review rather than a quiet region: the blockade is a continuing condition, and continuing is what it did. Two of the three country lenses rest this week on an absence of identified reporting rather than on positive confirmation, and the brief says so rather than implying coverage it does not have.
Theatre mapInteractive · 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
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 themethodology.
Influence and activity zones: broad · approximate · as of 2026-07 · Confidence: graded per zone
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 themethodology.
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.
Watch12 questions Vigil is tracking on Sahel — each one a file it is following, not a forecast it is making.
Can the government supply what it holds?
Mali's war is decided on roads, not in cities. Watch whether Anéfis, Aguelhok and Gao stay supplied overland, and whether relief columns can move without being ambushed — that, not any map of towns, measures state reach. The April 2026 withdrawals from Aguelhok, Tessalit, Tessit and Ber are the baseline: positions given up were not lost in battle so much as left unsupportable.
Does the JNIM–FLA alignment hold?
The two have different objectives — religious rule versus self-determination — and a shared enemy. April 2026 was reported as the first time they openly coordinated operations. Watch for friction over governing captured areas, particularly religious-law enforcement in FLA zones. The alliance is the single biggest variable in the war.
Does corridor pressure tighten or ease?
Read across all three states, because the corridors are the region's organising geography — OECD research puts nearly 70% of violent incidents within kilometres of major roads. In Mali: tankers destroyed against tankers arriving under escort, the balance rather than the declaration, since the blockade has already eased once and been reimposed. In Burkina Faso: whether volume shifts between the Lomé, Abidjan, Cotonou and Tema axes, and whether the August 2026 Ghana accord produces documented escorts. In Niger: whether the Benin border reopens and whether the Kebbi transit route carries real volume. Fuel and food availability in the capitals is where all of it lands.
Does the encirclement model spread?
Djibo has been surrounded since February 2022, its population forcibly concentrated and its supply moved into the air, and it has not fallen — an instrument for making a place ungovernable without capturing it. Watch whether other towns are enclosed the same way, whether road resupply ever resumes to any of them, and whether an assault is ever followed by occupation rather than withdrawal. This is the observable that distinguishes reach from control at town scale.
8 further entriesthe rest of the standing watch list
Does the confederation do anything its members could not?
The AES has built a treaty, a levy, a customs duty, a bank, a passport, a parliament and — since December 2025 — a unified force with a named commander and a stated strength of about 5,000. No operation attributable to that force has been independently documented. Watch for one: a joint operation across an internal border would be the first evidence that the regional answer matches the regional problem. Watch equally for the ECOWAS track, where free trade and free movement have been maintained "until further notice" while membership has not.
Where is the insurgency geography moving?
Both jihadist organisations are cross-border by construction — IS-Sahel through reported military zones spanning the three states, JNIM through katibas including Ansarul Islam, of Burkinabè origin, and Katiba Macina, which operates in western Burkina Faso as well as Mali. Watch expansion southward toward Niamey and the coastal states, the Lakurawa interface on the Niger–Nigeria border, and whether any incursion is followed by administration. Vigil publishes no strength estimates for these organisations: none is established at this site's standard.
Is the Russian presence growing, static or contracting — per state?
Three deployments, not one posture: roughly 2,000 personnel and a combat record in Mali, an instructor contingent in Burkina Faso whose expansion is reported to have collapsed and partly reversed, and a presence in Niger co-located with the AES joint command at Base 101. Watch each separately — personnel movements, base establishment, recalls, and official statements, of which there has been exactly one.
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.
How far south does the pressure go?
Attacks at Kéniéroba and Kati reached the capital region; the western campaign reached Kayes. Watch whether attack reach on Bamako's approaches becomes something more durable than raiding.
Evidence and review status
- Conflict reviewed
- 2026-09-06— the date of this conflict’s most recent verified Weekly Brief. It records a review of the conflict as a whole, not a revalidation of every underlying record; each record carries its own date.
- Assessed as of
- 2026-08 — the date this conflict’s standing geographic and situational claims are drawn to.
- 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 registryMethodologyCorrections logGlossary
Found an error in Sahel coverage? Corrections are logged in public with the date and what changed — see the corrections log.