Al-Qaeda affiliate Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has rapidly expanded across West Africa in recent months, seizing major cities in Burkina Faso and Mali while launching deadly attacks against security forces in Benin.
With an estimated 6,000 fighters, JNIM has quietly become the most heavily armed extremist force in the region, according to an investigative report by the Washington Post.
The group's escalating brutality spiked in May when a single attack in Burkina Faso killed more than 100 people, including security personnel, aid workers and civilians.
In just four major attacks over the past year, the group killed nearly 1,000 people, including 600 civilians, across Mali, Burkina Faso and Benin.
The group's rise stems from the "power vacuum, economic crisis, and sectarian tensions" plaguing Sahel countries, Kabul-based political analyst Mohammad Kazem Hosseini told Salaam Times.
Military coups across several West African nations have weakened governments, creating conditions that al-Qaeda has exploited to expand its power, he said.
Africa's Sahel region has become the epicenter of global terrorism, with more than half of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide occurring there for the first time, according to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index.
The report, published in March by the Institute for Economics and Peace, revealed that 51% of global terrorism-related deaths -- 3,885 out of 7,555 -- occurred in the Sahel region in 2024.
Violence and fear
Formed in 2017 from the merger of four al-Qaeda-linked groups in Mali, JNIM has imposed its own harsh interpretation of Islamic law in territories under its control.
Al-Qaeda uses its distorted interpretation of Islam "as a tool to advance its terrorist agenda," said Herat-based human rights activist Abdul Karim Daana.
Yet "every action by the group, including murder, assassination, kidnapping, human and arms trafficking, threats and torture, contradicts Islamic values," he told Salaam Times.
Under the pretext of enforcing Islamic law, JNIM forcibly collects zakat and taxes from impoverished locals, worsening poverty in communities under its control, reports indicate.
The group rules through terrorism, killings, abductions and torture, with local populations bearing the brunt of its brutality, Hosseini said.
"The tools of al-Qaeda affiliates in Africa are violence and fear," he said, adding that the growing influence of JNIM in the Sahel will likely lead to more violence and bloody conflicts.
For groups like al-Qaeda, people’s religion does not matter, as anyone who opposes them is eliminated, Daana said.
"Al-Qaeda affiliates operate in Muslim-majority countries, and most of the victims of their attacks are Muslim civilians," he noted.
"Human life holds no value for them."
The presence of al-Qaeda fighters in impoverished African countries has led to greater instability, deprived children of education, worsened poverty, and deepened the humanitarian crisis, he said.
