Insecurity throughout much of the Sahel and especially Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso is getting worse and is expected to deteriorate further.

Niger’s south east region of Diffa continues to be plagued by Boko Haram insurgents, although this may plateau with local and French intervention. The northern Agades region (from Arlit, through Aïr, Ténéré and Djado) faces rising food insecurity, people and drug trafficking and extremism. Meanwhile, Niamey faces growing civil unrest because of the government’s austerity measures.

Chad faces insecurity in the north and a bankrupt state riven by strikes and social chaos. Burkina Faso’s northern border regions show few signs of improvement and its capital, Ouagadougou, remains a soft target for jihadists.

The security situation in Mali is more difficult to measure. It may level off if the French — in the form of Operation Barkhane — and other armed forces continue to successfully target jihadists, and the current attempts at finding peace agreements between communities in central Mali can achieve short-term results. While direct jihadist violence and activity may decline slightly, it is highly likely that banditry and organised crime — especially in the form of drug trafficking and related activities — may increase.

The US decision to reduce its Special Operations forces in Africa, and especially the Sahel — along with Washington’s rapidly increasing reliance on drone warfare — will change the nature of military activity in the wider region in the foreseeable future. This is most likely to be seen first in Niger where the Dirkou and Agades drone bases will become central pivots of Western military intervention in the region.

The key things to watch out for across the Sahel in the next quarter are:

• the political reaction to the re-election of Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK);
• peace agreements being achieved between warring ethnic communities in central and eastern Mali;
• a continued greater Chinese — and possibly smaller Russian — regional presence;
• more economic unrest in Niger, Chad and possibly also in Mali;
• a deteriorating security situation in eastern Burkina Faso which could spread to Togo and Benin; and
• renewed political uncertainty in Mauritania as President Abdel Aziz tries to engineer a possible third presidential term or by appointing his own man as president.

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