The Unchecked Rise of Terrorism in Africa and Its Grave Implications for Benin — Assessing the Impact of JNIM’s Expansion into Northern Benin.
The speed at which terrorist groups have proliferated across Africa over the past two decades cannot be understated. In 2023, reported deaths from militant Islamist violence in the region rose by roughly 20% — jumping from 19,412 in 2022 to 23,322. Last year’s figure represents a near doubling in deaths since 2021 and a 101,300% increase compared to the combined total of the years 2002 and 2003.
Many of these groups, often linked to either al-Qaeda or Islamic State (IS), are now found across much of Africa, although they are particularly prevalent in countries such as Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Mali. The proliferation of terrorist organisations in West Africa has “over the last decade… reversed its development gains… exacerbated by the resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government” UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed recently warned.
Burkina Faso offers a prime example of this notion, as violent extremist organisations (VEOs) have now seized huge swathes of the country’s territory, displacing and stalling the development of millions in the process. The increased prevalence of VEOs and their associated violence has also led to two military coups, both of which were justified by the worsening levels of insecurity. The regime changes, however, have also contributed to the acute violence impacting much of Burkina Faso, which is now the most affected country in the world by terrorism.
But the current conditions in Burkina Faso began with only sporadic attacks, which at the time may not have appeared to possess the potential to lead to such perilous circumstances. The country’s rapid downward trajectory over the past decade should serve as a stark warning to those nearby, for it is evident that intermittent violence and relatively low levels of VEO activity can quickly metastasise into once unimaginable consequences if left unattended.
This does not bode well for Benin, where over the past several years terrorist activity has gradually spilt over into the country from neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Most recently, on 4 June, seven Beninese soldiers were killed while patrolling the Pendjari national park. They were reportedly ambushed by Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) militants, who fled across the border into Burkinabè territory after looting the soldiers of their weapons, ammunition, and vehicles.
This attack marks a further continuation of a concerning trend in Benin, which only recorded its first incident of extremist violence in 2019. The number of recorded attacks in the country has risen year-on-year since, reaching 20 incidents in 2022, before doubling last year. 2023’s drastic uptick was labelled by the Beninese military as the sharpest rise of extremist attacks in Africa.
An overwhelming proportion of this Islamist militant activity has taken place in the Park W-Arly-Pendjari complex, a vast 1.7 million hectares of land that constitutes West Africa’s largest protected wilderness. The sheer size of this complex, which is predominantly composed of dense forestry, alongside its location on the periphery of one of the most violent regions in the world, means Benin has struggled to halt the growing presence of JNIM, and to a much lesser extent Islamic State-Sahel (IS-Sahel).
JNIM’s growing presence in Benin is found not only in the growing number of attacks, but also in the country’s drastically increasing rate of kidnappings. 2023 saw northern Benin record at least 75 kidnapping (or attempted kidnapping) incidents, just over triple the number recorded in 2022, which itself witnessed a total higher than the combined number recorded nationwide between 2016 and 2021.
The implications of these emerging patterns are grave, with kidnappings serving as one of the initial tactics VEOs frequently deploy to assert their presence in new areas. Indeed, both JNIM and IS-Sahel typically begin their encroachment into fresh territory by forging of alliances with local actors. In northern Benin, JNIM are said to have established ties with those involved in illicit activities such as fuel smuggling, Indian hemp trafficking, and illegal hunting years before the country experienced its first attack.
For those less willing to cooperate, methods designed to coerce and intimidate, such as kidnappings, will instead be used. Kidnappings can be invaluable to these groups for plethora of reasons. They can provide much-needed intel on the local terrain, strike fear into local communities, announce the presence of a VEO as a legitimate violent actor, as well as an additional source of income. Perhaps most importantly, however, is that kidnappings gradually erode the belief that the state is the primary security provider.
It is clear that JNIM has found notable success in northern Benin over recent years, but this says as much about the group’s capabilities as it does the policies implemented in the region by the Beninese government. JNIM’s expansion would likely have been far more difficult without the pre-existing grievances found in the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex and its surrounding areas. Here, farmer and pastoral communities have increasingly found themselves competing over access to the parks’ comparatively abundant natural resources and open space — a rare environment in a region being transformed by climate change.
Local communities have also been increasingly at odds with the Beninese government. Indeed, a series of land reforms and sedentarization laws aimed at modernising its agro-pastoral industry and conserving the local ecosystem, as well as the closure of the Park Complex to the public after two French tourists were kidnapped there several years ago, have all been accused of exacerbating these grievances and conflicts.
JNIM has seemingly been able to leverage some of these frustrations to facilitate its expansion deeper into the Park Complex, in turn allowing them to become an increasingly more dominant actor in Benin. Underscoring this notion is a recent study carried out in the Atakora Department, which houses the Pendjari National Park and the largest section of Benin’s border with Burkina Faso. Fieldwork here found that 20% of participants personally knew someone who had joined JNIM, while 45% reported seeing JNIM in their community, and 30% had personally interacted with JNIM militants.
This data is alarming, to say the least. Although taken from a relatively small sample pool, the fact that one in five participants stated they knew someone who had joined JNIM gives an indication of the group’s success in recruiting from the local population. Many of these new recruits will undoubtedly have been drawn to the attractive social rewards and financial opportunities offered by the group, both of which have become increasingly scarce in the region in recent years. Disenfranchised members of local communities joining the group will have enabled JNIM’s aggressive expansion deeper into Benin due to their knowledge and connections. Moreover, with almost half of respondents having reportedly seen JNIM in their community, it is apparent that the group not only uses the Park Complex in northern Benin as a recruitment pool, but also as a base to establish themselves beyond its limits.
Benin now finds itself at a crossroads, and it is imperative that the government acts quickly and decisively to prevent the country from falling to the same fate as its northern neighbours in the Central Sahel. The country will undoubtedly continue to face extensive threats to its security if groups such as JNIM and IS-Sahel are able to operate with relative impunity in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. However, there are several steps the country should take to tackle the growing threat posed by VEOs in its territory.
In the Park W-Arly-Pendjari complex, the government should better address the socio-economic pressures facing farmer and pastoralist communities here, even if it comes at a slight environmental cost. This can be done by declassifying segments of the park’s buffer zones for these communities to use, which would likely alleviate overall levels of conflict and competition. While this could be a short-term solution, a comprehensive strategy aimed at providing sustainable economic opportunities to the affected areas in northern Benin should also be considered.
Benin must also increase military cooperation with Burkina Faso and Niger, the latter of whom the country is currently embroiled in a lengthy diplomatic spat with. With their relationship currently fraught and Niger facing its own, more serious issues with VEO violence, the Tiani-led administration is unlikely to prioritise terrorist activity near its border with Benin. But this fallout does not only rule out military assistance and cooperation. It has also meant that Niger has kept its side of the border closed for almost a year now. Until it is reopened, local communities in northern Benin who once relied on cross-border trade will continue to be negatively impacted, further fuelling socio-economic conditions and grievances conducive for violent extremists.
While facing its own extensive issues with VEOs, Nigeria will be concerned that JNIM militants from the Sahel have transited through Benin and settled in the western Kainji Lake National Park. The threat here is relatively nascent compared to others found elsewhere in Nigeria, meaning Abuja potentially has a window of opportunity to combat JNIM before the group morphs into a far larger threat.
To do so, it will need to cooperate intensely with Benin, and even shoulder more of the burden whilst attempting to tackle this emerging threat. There is evidence that bandits from Nigeria are now crossing into JNIM-held zones in Benin too, underscoring how failing to address this issue will benefit VEOs traditionally found on opposite sides of the border. Nigeria has ample experience combatting VEOs, even if its success in doing so is limited. It must share its experience and knowledge with Benin to implement an effective counter-terrorism strategy, which must attempt to address all facets of the insecurity multiplying across their shared border.
Finally, the Western community should almost certainly play a more proactive role in helping Benin via a mixture of civilian and military initiatives. While improving the capacities and size of the Beninese security apparatus will be of much use in fighting VEOs, focussing on providing an outlet for disenfranchised members to leave their groups will be equally productive in the long run. Accordingly, US and EU should set up and sponsor DDR programmes immediately, as they do elsewhere in the region.
The fate of Benin remains unclear, although it is evident that if trends over the past few years are allowed to progress at their current rates, the country will likely suffer a similar fate as some of its West African peers — many of whom now experience some of the highest levels of terrorism and violence in the world. Should the current status quo be maintained, the proliferation of VEOs will continue unabated throughout the region, and many will die or be plunged into poverty as a result. Yet until this issue arrives on the doorstep of Western nations, the scale of the unfolding crisis appears likely to remain largely ignored by policymakers, the media, and the public alike.
