The Sahel: three military governments, two insurgencies

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are ruled by soldiers who took power between 2020 and 2023, expelled French and American forces, and turned to Russia. They are fighting jihadist groups that hold much of the countryside, and in northern Mali a Tuareg movement that wants its own state. The governments want full control of their territory and an end to outside tutelage. The jihadists want states ruled by their reading of Islamic law. The Tuareg movement wants the north. France and the West African bloc, which the three left, want them back under elected governments.

Where it stands · September 2026

In September Niger's military government reshuffled its army command, weeks after a mutiny in its army. An attack in Mali killed dozens of soldiers and Russian mercenaries; the death toll passed 100. Amnesty International accused Mali's army and the Wagner Group of war crimes.

What the dispute is about

Who rules the land. The three states have never governed much of their own territory. Armed groups tax, judge and recruit where the state is absent or feared.

Who the states answer to. For sixty years after independence their currency, their armies and their mines were tied to France. The soldiers in power say that tie kept them poor and did not keep them safe. Their critics say the soldiers have swapped one patron for another and cancelled elections to stay.

What kind of state. Secular republics drawn by colonial borders, an emirate under Islamic law, or a separate Tuareg north. No two of the three fit on the same map.

How each side explains it

The military governments' account

The war came from outside: NATO destroyed Libya in 2011, and its weapons and fighters poured south. France then stayed for ten years with thousands of soldiers, and the insurgency spread from one corner of Mali across three countries. The elected governments that hosted the French were corrupt and could not protect a village. France kept the currency, bought the uranium cheap, and chose which armed groups could be fought. When the soldiers took over, the West African bloc answered with sanctions that starved ordinary people and a threat to invade Niger. Russia sells weapons without lectures. Sovereignty comes first; elections can wait until there is a country to hold them in.

In our coverage

The Sahel juntas rightly chose new partners free of colonial conditions →16 headlines
Covered by:Punch · RT · TASS (EN) · CGTN · RIA Novosti · Kommersant

The jihadist groups' account

The states are corrupt creations of the colonisers, their armies kill herders and villagers, and their courts serve whoever pays. God's law brings justice where there was none. Foreign soldiers, French or Russian, are occupiers, and governments that invite them are apostate.

What each account leaves out

The military governments' leaves out the elections promised and cancelled, the parties dissolved and the journalists sent to the front; the villagers killed by their armies and their Russian partners; and that they hold less ground now than the governments they overthrew.

The jihadist groups' leaves out the villages massacred, the towns starved under siege and the taxes taken at gunpoint from the people they say they protect.

The Tuareg movements' leaves out that many northerners are not Tuareg and never asked for their state, and that their alliance of 2026 is with al-Qaeda's branch.

France's and the bloc's leaves out Libya; that ten years of French operations ended with more violence than they began with; the currency and mining arrangements behind the anger; that the coups were cheered in the streets; and that the bloc threatened war over Niger's coup while tolerating presidents elsewhere who rewrote constitutions to stay.

The ledger

The military governments

Wanted: the people wanted safety and dignity, and cheered the coups for both; the soldiers wanted power and a free hand.
Did: expelled France, hired Russia, left the regional bloc, took the mines.
Gained: control of their own decisions and of mining revenue.
Paid: lost ground, lost soldiers, isolation, and dependence on a new patron whose forces were beaten at Kidal.

The jihadist groups

Wanted: to rule.
Did: fought a rural war of attrition and encirclement.
Gained: much of the countryside of three states.
Paid: little they count as cost.

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

junta, coup / transition, rectification
mercenaries / instructors, partners
neocolonialism / partnership
terrorists / mujahideen
Azawad / northern Mali
sovereignty / isolation

Events per week

Per-week distribution of events. Click a bar to see that week's top events.

Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.

Week of Sep 28, 2026(4)

Sahel juntas launch TV channel with Russian backing

1 sourcesOct 4, 2026

Algeria sent fighter jets to Niger to thwart coup attempt

1 sourcesOct 3, 2026

Amnesty International accuses Mali army and Wagner Group of war crimes

1 sourcesSep 29, 2026

Chad faces unprecedented crisis as army cracks and president's cousin threatens coup