Russian mercenaries replace Western forces as ISIS surges across Africa’s Sahel region

Analysts claim the withdrawal of U.S. and European troops from countries in Africa’s Sahel, and their replacement by Russian mercenaries, has led to a spike in jihadist-driven terrorism. 

The Sahel is a belt of countries running roughly west to east across the continent just below the Sahara Desert. A total of 3,885 deaths—about 51% of all terrorism-related fatalities globally in 2024—occurred in the Sahel, according to the Global Terrorism Index.

In at least three Sahel states — Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso — military juntas that came to power in coups, notably Niger and Mali, have expelled Western military forces. The U.S. was asked, after 11 years in the country, to halt anti-terror drone operations from two bases in Niger last year. In Mali, French forces were ejected in 2022 after battling Islamist terror groups for nine years. 

Governments have turned to the Kremlin’s private mercenary army, the Africa Corps—formerly known as the Wagner Group—for protection. But the Russians are reportedly more interested in extracting minerals than helping stop the spread of jihadism.

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Supporters of Niger’s National Concil of Sefeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) hold a Russia (R) and a Chinese (L) flag as they gather at Place de la Concertation in Niamey on Aug. 20, 2023.  (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

Ordinary people often bear the brunt of jihadist attacks in the Sahel. Last month, Islamist gunmen on motorbikes reportedly killed 22 people in an attack on Tillaberi village in western Niger. Fifteen of the dead were families attending a naming ceremony for a child, reports said. In northern Mali in January, Russian mercenaries allegedly joined government forces in executing 10 civilians, including a 2-year-old boy.

In the Sahel, “groups affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are continuing their territorial and strategic advance,” the Observer Research Foundation reported in August, “taking advantage of governance gaps and weak security forces to push into littoral West African states such as Benin and Togo.”

“The situation in the Sahel, particularly in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, has rapidly deteriorated since the U.S. and French have withdrawn from the countries following the coups,” Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,(FDD) told Fox News Digital.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi shake hands during a family photo opportunity during the Russia Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, July 28, 2023.  ((Alexei Danichev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP))

Roggio, also editor of the FDD’s Long War Journal, added, “The reality is that the situation was bad before the U.S. and French left the region, but the drawdown of U.S. and French forces has exacerbated the jihadist advances.”

“Both al Qaeda’s branch in the region, JNIM, (al Qaeda-linked Jama’a Nusrat Al-Islam wa al-Muslimin) and the Islamic State have made gains and control significant enclaves in the countries … The juntas in these three countries wanted the West out, and have turned to Russia to provide security via Wagner, which is now ironically called the Africa Corps.”

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A Boko Haram flag flutters from an abandoned command post in Gamboru deserted after Chadian troops chased them from the border town on February 4, 2015.  (Stephane Yas/AFP via Getty Images)

“The Russian forces have little incentive to improve security and focus on securing mineral resources for profit,” Roggio added. “This further fuels the jihadist insurgencies, which prey on civilians caught between the jihadists and weak-to-nonexistent governments in some cases. There is little the U.S. can do at the moment, as these governments are anti-West and do not want a return of U.S. and French forces. And I am not sure either country has the political will or desire to return.”

On the situation in Niger, Frans Cronje told Fox News Digital that, “During the run-up to the 2023 coup, a very sophisticated political and media campaign was run to poison opinion against Western influence in Niger, often employing the kind of anti-colonial tropes that had become popular as part of woke culture in the West.”

Russia’s Wagner group mercenaries in Mali, Africa.  (East2West)

Cronje continued, “French and U.S. stabilization efforts were tarred as imperialist interference and worse. That was on top of the fact that French and U.S. troops were already under severe strain in combating a jihadist insurgency that threatened the civilian population. You could make the case that even without the coup, the Western position was untenable, short of committing ever greater volumes of arms and munitions to a war very far away from Paris and Washington.”

Cronje agreed with Roggio in his assessment of the Kremlin’s position: “Russia’s forces have now filled the gap left by the French and Americans, but Russia’s objective is securing resource supply chains – not civilians.”

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Wagner mercenaries in Mali, December 2023. (East2West)

He concluded, “It is difficult to say if this situation could have been avoided. The only way to do it would have been to run political and media operations to build popular support for Western actors, then install a pro-Western administration and, beyond that, vastly increase Western military resources, including troops, deployed in Niger. All a bridge too far for Western actors—and, in many respects, understandably so.”

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “The United States has engaged with Sahelian countries using a pragmatic approach that focuses on advancing our foreign policy priorities. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Will Stevens’ recent visits to the region reinforced the U.S. government’s work with host country officials to advance U.S. commercial opportunities and to engage on strategic counterterrorism priorities to mitigate threats to U.S. personnel and interests.”