Failure in the Sahel

In an illuminating book, published earlier this year, political scientist Adam Casey explored the issue of whether the US government had been able to use arms sales to sustain friendly but authoritarian regimes during the Cold War years. His conclusion was that by and large they had not had that effect. The US model assumed the need for armies to be independent of government, so the support flowed to the military who often then went on to mount coups. As interesting was the second part of his argument. The Soviet Union’s model for military assistance was quite different. It reflected a preoccupation with regime stability and the need to keep the army subordinate to prevent coups. Soviet support often included special units tasked with protecting the leaders of the regime, a vanguard party to spread its power, and suppression of popular dissent. The regimes so supported tended to survive longer - although their armies were more prone to corruption and lost effectiveness.

A recent article in the RUSI journal by Jack Watling and Nina Wilén on strategic realignment in the Sahel region of Africa fits Casey’s analysis remarkably well, providing another example of how much modern Russia is still influenced by past Soviet practice. In this case it was France that was caught out by coups in countries where it had been providing direct and substantial military assistance. As the new juntas broke with France, Russia achieved a strategic realignment by stepping in with military support of its own. There were precedents in Africa. One going back to the Cold War, examined by Casey, was the catastrophic rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam who came to power in Ethiopia in a 1974 coup and was soon backed by Soviet and Cuban advisors helping him develop a new internal security apparatus to crush any opposition, as well as fight insurgents. He lasted until the end of the Cold War in 1991, despite presiding over a disastrous famine in the mid-1980s.

Watling and Wilén point to the more recent example of the Central African Republic (CAR). France had fought, together with an African Union force, to put down a rebellion and restore stability to the country. Once this operation was over, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra expelled the French and in 2018 brought in the Russian Wagner Group as a new security partner. They helped him push back rebels who at one point seemed close to taking the capital Bangui. They also helped him consolidate his personal power. In return Wagner gained profitable timber and gold mining contracts, and Russia gained diplomatic support, including for its invasion of Ukraine, and possibly a new military base 80 kilometers from the capital.

Over the past few years in the Sahel, a region which stretches from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, the Russians have followed this same strategy with apparently stunning success. They have inserted themselves into the security apparatuses of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The Watling/ Wilén account of how this came about, including the failure of the French and other EU countries to sustain the pre-coup regimes, is in line with Casey’s analysis. The Europeans saw their military task as fighting Jihadist (radical Islamist) terrorists rather than keeping particular governments in power. The new leaders therefore put their trust in Russia, snubbing the West. Yet Russia is doing no better, and if anything worse, than the West in helping these countries deal with the Jihadist threat and the wider violence in their countries. In fact they are responsible for much of the violence. As with other Africa conflicts, including the Sudan, European attention remains elsewhere, in Ukraine and the Middle East.  Yet what is going in the Sahel still matters, and developments there may tell us something about the developing pattern of international affairs.

Complex Conflicts

These are countries facing enormous problems, with numerous armed groups, not just Jihadists, fighting each other as well as the state, against a backdrop of social dislocation and poverty, aggravated by climate change. The populations are young. Not quite half of Mali’s 25 million population are under 15. The numbers in Burkina Faso and Niger are broadly similar.

The trouble goes back to colonial times. In Mali, for example, the Tuareg community, believing itself to be the victim of discrimination, fought against the French, and then, after independence, with the successor state, leading eventually to a secessionist movement. Later Jihadism started to influence the disaffected, dislocated and impressionable. Armed groups sustained themselves through banditry, cattle theft, and arms trafficking. With violence also being perpetrated by government forces, and the unaccountable paramilitaries they supported, ordinary civilians formed militias to protect themselves.

The violence in these countries is therefore neither cyclical nor the product of one dominant conflict. It is instead cumulative and self-reinforcing. As states struggle to cope with armed groups their ability to perform other essential functions also deteriorates. Unable to trust the state, communities seek to defend themselves, and inter-communal tensions grow. The size of the countries and the forbidding terrain, along with the number and variety of the conflicts, frustrate attempts by the state to assert its authority.

These tendencies were aggravated by the ease with which turbulence elsewhere in the neighbourhood entered these landlocked countries. National borders count for little. Radical groups and criminal gangs can move back and forth. Jihadist influences entered from Algeria in the 1990s, opportunities for smuggling routes opened up because of sanctions against Libya during that decade, and then Mali became one of the major routes from Latin America for cocaine and other drugs destined for Europe and the Middle East. Small arms were readily accessible and inexpensive because of the numerous conflicts around the region. External actors were attracted by the region’s resources, notably gold.

The two most prominent Jihadist groups are the Jama’a Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), formed out of a merger of smaller groups in 2017, operating largely in Burkina Faso and Mali, and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), a subgroup of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), an offshoot of al Qaeda, which has more of a presence in Niger.

Boko Haram, which made its name with some brutal acts in Nigeria in the 2000s, including the abduction of large numbers of schoolgirls, is also active in the region. Another non-Jihadi group, operating in Mali, is the Permanent Strategic Framework (Cadre stratégique permanent, CSP), an alliance of predominantly Tuareg groups. The Tuaregs are an ethnically Berber, semi-nomadic, and largely Muslim people.

All these armed groups extract what value they can from the people and land they control. Gold mining can be particularly lucrative and is used to acquire recruits and pay for arms. If they meet resistance, and even if they do not, they do not spare civilians.

Global warming has hit the region badly, symbolized by Lake Chad, a source of freshwater to some 40 million people, being on the verge of drying up. Many have been displaced from their homes and hunger is widespread. Chitra Nagarajan, who warns against using climate change as an excuse for high poverty, inequality, weak government and the poor management of natural resources, explains its impact on Mali.

‘In Mali, climate change and conflict decrease the amount of land and water resources that are both productive for livelihoods and safe. Population growth, climate- and conflict-related migration, and the impacts of climate change increase pressure on and competition over natural resources. Population growth rates, amongst the highest in the world, increase demand for food production. Demographic pressures lead to soil erosion, reduction in grazing areas, and increased competition for arable land. Land-grabbing and appropriation, rent-seeking, power struggles, and conflict between the state and some communities further increase the impact of these dynamics. Depletion of water and foraging resources and encroachment of agricultural land onto grazing areas make conflict more likely.’

These effects are by no means confined to Mali. In a new book, Peter Schwartzstein describes the conflict between herders and farmers in Burkina Faso. Unpredictable rainfall provides the farmers with no certainty about when to plant their crops. Fear of terrorism means that they dare not move their herds to possible sources of water – and when the rain suddenly comes it can create its own hazards as tracks become impassable and animals drown.

The European Failure

When the Jihadi groups started to make serious progress in Mali in 2012, moving towards the capital Bamako, France responded to a request from the government for help, leading to Operation Serval. Initially this was successful. Early in 2013 Malian and French troops retook several cities. This turned into Operation Barkhane, which was headquartered in Chad, and involved 3,000 troops, covering the five Sahel countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mauritania). Other EU countries (including, at that time, the UK) swung in behind the French. Task Force Takuba was established in 2020, with European contingents under French leadership, supporting operations in Mali. The Security Council established the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in April 2013 to support political and stabilisation processes and the protection of civilians. There was more training, more programmes on governance, and more economic assistance.

France committed substantial sums - up to €1bn per year to these operations – and lost 53 soldiers from 2014 to 2022. The other European states did enough to show solidarity with France although they tended to be cautious about their troops venturing too far from their bases, anxious to avoid casualties. Their contributions were therefore limited and conditional.

Initially these operations were presented as a model of intervention led by countries that knew the region and understood its social and political structures, in contrast to the Americans stomping around in places they barely understood. But the violence got worse. Intimidation, kidnapping, and sexual violence were all rife. By 2015 the violence was afflicting neighbouring states. After spreading out across Mali and into Burkina Faso by 2020 Jihadi violence had reached the westerly parts of Niger.

What went wrong? In a valuable survey of European policy in the region, Will Brown of the European Council on Foreign Relations, observes that:

‘The European campaign against armed groups in the central Sahel failed primarily because of deep-rooted social, cultural, and ethnic clashes among the region’s diverse peoples. What was initially perceived as a straightforward fight against fundamentalists became entangled in an intricate web of violent attacks driven by ethnic tensions, poverty, and local conflicts — such as those between the region’s Fulani herdsmen and pastoral farming communities like the Dogon in Mali and the Mossi in Burkina Faso.’

The French soon suffered from a problem common to all counter-insurgency operations. It was one thing to clear out the enemy fighters but quite another to hold the cleared territories, which required the effective administration of the territories and continuing protection for the people and their local leaders, who were vulnerable to assassination. The training of local forces was also patronising and inadequate. Brown quotes Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Bamako:

‘[European militaries] didn’t want to give the Malian army weapons, not even for training sessions – asking Malian soldiers to pick branches from trees to imitate guns. The Malian army wanted ‘real’ training with soldiers going with them to the frontline, but Europe’s half-hearted mission efforts had adopted a ‘zero-risk’ approach, which didn’t achieve much in the end.’

The net effect was to undermine the governments they were supposed to be supporting. The complaints were familiar. Local irritation grew with risk-averse Western advisers and development money that seemed to encourage more corruption and inequality than improvements in social and economic conditions.

There were also political differences between the French and the local governments. In return for acting as the security guarantor of the Sahelian regimes, France expected the regimes to respect human rights. Their interest in negotiations with minority groups upset nationalists. In Mali, the French were anxious to defeat the Jihadists but thought a deal could be done with the Tuareg separatists, which was far from the view of the Malian government.

Russia’s Opportunity

In 2020 Colonel Assimi Goïta, staged a coup in Mali. A civilian-led transitional government was formed but in May 2021 Goïta staged a second coup to take back control from civilians. Later that year some 1,500 mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group arrived, and soon after Goïta expelled the French troops and then the UN peacekeepers who were there to support the tentative truce between the government and Tuareg separatists. After that truce collapsed, the Wagner group was now expected also to support operations against the separatists as well as the Jihadists.

Next came Burkina Faso, where there was a coup in January 2022. France tried to avoid a similar break with the new regime, with a less high-handed response, but then got caught out by yet another coup the next September, which followed some deadly Jihadist attacks on the Burkinabe army. The new leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, made anti-imperialism and close connections with Russia, a theme of his rule. The coup took a strong anti-France turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the leaders for fighting ‘colonialists who robbed the people’. Although for his anti-Jihadist operations he relied on self-defence militias, early in 2024 Traoré welcomed 100 Russian ‘instructors’, with another 200 troops seen deployed as a presidential guard.

By this stage Niger had also had its coup, when General Abdourahamane Tchiani seized power in July 2023. This came just after Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had led what at one point looked like turning into a coup against Putin. With the GRU (Russian military intelligence) now in charge of the Wagner fighters they recast the organization as an Expeditionary Corps, and concluded that Niger was likely to be interested in the help it could offer. There was the added advantage of potential access to French uranium mining concessions in the country. Their pitch to Tchiani, was successful. Niger accepted Russian support and expelled the French, completing the set of Sahel countries. By the end of 2023 Niger had also suspended the EU mission that had been training internal security forces and a military mission that had only recently arrived.

The Russians displaced the French by offering the new governments what they wanted.  As Watling and Wilén note the Russian strategy was based on the empowerment of the local elites, which naturally they found attractive. Unfortunately this also meant that they could be empowered to do harmful and counterproductive things.

Mali

Mali provided the major test for the Russian intervention. It involved some 1,500 troops of the Wagner organisation (now known as the Africa Corps but still generally referred to as Wagner). By demonstrating their value they get access to Mali’s mineral resources, especially gold.

For Goita the Russians, despite being fewer in number, had several advantages over the French:

• They advised on protecting the regime.

• They were prepared to allow the Malian army (Forces Armées Maliennes, FAMA) to set the strategy and take the operational lead;

• They would support their campaign against separatists as well as against the Jihadists.

• They did not have many qualms about using rough, coercive tactics, including murdering civilians, in searching for enemy fighters and persuading communities not to support them.

They had some early successes, including against the Tuareg separatists. But soon there were reports of the Wagner mercenaries looting villages and terrorizing civilians. According to ACLED analysts, FAMA/Wagner units adopt brutal tactics against villages believed to be complicit with enemy groups, including ‘decapitation, summary shootings, and burning of victims, even when still alive.’ This stored up resentments among the civilian population, generating recruits for both the separatists and the Jihadists. With so much ground to cover, the combined FAMA/Wagner force got stretched. Because of the demands on its forces in Ukraine, Russia did not have any more to spare.

The first big blow to the Russians came in late July 2024 when a combined FAMA/Wagner force tried and failed to take Tuareg rebel stronghold at Tinzaouaten on the Mali-Algeria border. The faced several hundred fighters, who also were backed by Jihadists. In a detailed analysis of this defeat, New York Times confirmed the deaths of 45 fighters and 24 FAMA soldiers. Among those killed was Nikita Fedyanin, one of Wagner’s most influential online propagandists. The reconstruction of the battle was largely based on footage from his camera.

The FAMA/Wagner force had faced little resistance as they moved through a number of villages. They were being lured towards an ambush prepared by separatist forces. After the convoy of vehicles ferrying the troops was hit by explosive devices they were forced to divert through even rougher terrain. After taking some casualties, two helicopters were called in to evacuate the dead and wounded, but one of these was shot down. Then under cover of a sandstorm the separatist fighters closed in. The mercenaries were pinned down, struggling with their equipment, unable to call in reinforcements, and steadily getting killed. Eventually the FAMA/Wagner force retreated but they were caught. In the aftermath of a massacre the New York Times reported that Malian officers’ were expressing growing frustration with Wagner’s behaviour. They ‘wanted partners who were more professional and disciplined.’

Meanwhile the JNIM was also getting bolder. In mid-September it attacked Bamako airport, reportedly killing dozens. They did so again in late October, posting videos of an ambush on a military training school and planes, including a presidential jet, being set on fire at the international airport. JINM said this was a punishment for ‘massacres and slaughters committed by this ruling clique and its Russian allies against our Muslim people.’ 

Burkina Faso and Niger

The Russian role in the other Sahel states is less prominent. The regimes here are beleaguered as they struggle to deal with the Jihadist groups. They are also still worried about coups as well as rebellions. Traoré in Burkina Faso relies on the Rapid Intervention Battalions (Bataillon d'Intervention Rapide, BIR) which receives weaponry and resources in preference to the regular army and uses vicious means to crackdown on dissidents, real and imagined. In addition, a self-defence militia known as Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie, VDP) supposedly take on the Jihadists, but are also regularly accused of vicious acts against civilians. Meanwhile, the regular army has experienced heavy casualties. It is demoralised and inclined to flee when contact is made with the enemy.

In August the JNIM perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history, killing some 400 people, and possibly many more at Barsalogho, some 145 kilometers north of the capital. The victims were troops, militia members, and civilians. Although some 300 Wagner mercenaries were deployed to Burkina Faso, after Barsalogho, and in the light of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, it was reported that about 100 were returning home. The contingent that was left in the capital, Ouagadougou, might help protect the regime but could do little more.

In Niger General Tchiani has faced attacks from ISGS and, to a lesser extent, JNIM, leaving the capital, Niamey, encircled. It is also being challenged by loyalist rebel groups seeking the release of his imprisoned predecessor. All this has left Tchiani increasingly paranoid and holed up in his place. In all, in these three countries, nearly half the territory is under rebel or separatist control.

Jihadist Revival

The Islamists have been strengthening their positions in rural areas and starting to surround the national capitals, which for now is all that the governments can be sure of controlling. According to one account:

‘Russia’s strong-handed tactics have not restored order to the post-coup Sahel nations. On the contrary, civilian and military deaths have sky-rocketed. Civilian fatalities are reported to have risen by 65 percent over the previous year, with both sides bearing responsibility.’

During the course of this decade, since 2020, fatalities in the Sahel have increased 300 percent. The JNIM, blamed for 80 percent of the Islamist violence, were responsible for some 5,500 deaths in 2022 to over 9,000 in 2023, out of a total of more than 11,500. (Note that problems of reporting means that these numbers are almost certainly underestimates).

The Global Terrorism Index, published in February 2024, observed with some alarm:

‘The epicentre of terrorism has now conclusively shifted out of the Middle East and into the Central Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. There were just under four thousand deaths from terrorism in the Sahel in 2023, or 47 per cent of the total. The increase in terrorism in the Sahel over the past 15 years has been dramatic, with deaths rising 2,860 per cent, and incidents rising 1,266 per cent over this period. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger account for most of the terrorism deaths in the region.’

The worsening security situation has forced the NGO Doctors Without Borders to suspend its operations. Some 24 million people require assistance of some kind in the Sahel. About 5 million of these have been displaced. There are 870,000 refugees.

Conclusion

There may be an element of schadenfreude in watching Russia fail in a major play against Western interests and get caught in a mess, from which it can only extricate itself with a loss of face. But the problem is that the result of this failure has been to turn the Sahel into a centre for extremist violence that risks spreading further, creating issues for neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Chad. The military regimes are not easy for outside actors to engage with, and some that have tried have been left frustrated. There was talk, in the aftermath of the Niger coup, of an ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) intervention to restore civilian rule, but there was never the will nor the capacity for such an operation. The main effect of raising the idea was to add to the paranoia of the Sahel three who formed their own Alliance of Sahelian States (Alliance des États du Sahel, AES) in July 2024.

The situation is therefore unstable and dangerous. It represents a  failure of both civilian and military governments, of both French and Russian interventionism. The regimes are now looking for new sources of assistance in dealing with their insurgencies, but while they may find some willing mercenaries, states are going to be reluctant to commit to what may appear to be hopeless causes that can only be turned around with better governments and massive resources. For now the best policy for European governments, and the US, may be to try to prevent the violence from spreading too deeply into neighbouring countries and for maintaining contacts with the existing regimes until they have a change of heart.

There is a basic lesson here for outside interventions trying to put an end to crippling violence and disorder in civil wars. In the end, no matter what resources are devoted to the challenge, the quality of the host government makes an enormous difference. Those that are committed and competent, and have support among the people and elites, have a fighting chance (although of course those with these qualities should not need so much outside support). Those that rely on brute force and worry largely about coup-proofing their governments will struggle. The Russians managed to achieve a remarkable strategic alignment in the Sahel but to turn into a success they need to be able to help their new friends turn around a rapidly deteriorating security situation. And so far they are failing.