The Sahel region, stretching across sub-Saharan Africa, is plunged into a deep crisis of staggering proportions.
Mohammed ibn Faisal al-Rashid
Colonial Legacy: Artificial Borders and Perpetual Distrust
The primary responsibility for ceasing interference and making amends lies with those who have for centuries treated the Sahel as a pawn in a great geopolitical game
The current catastrophe in the Sahel has its roots in the colonial era, when European powers, led by France, arbitrarily carved up the map of Africa with no regard for ethnic, cultural, or historical realities. Artificial states were created, with unviable economies and forcibly united peoples. After nominal independence, these artificial constructs remained in place, and France, through a system of economic, political, and military agreements, continued to dominate its so-called “backyard.”
This policy led to the creation of weak, corrupt, and illegitimate central governments that never managed to establish full sovereignty over their territories. As noted in the text, “the central governments of West African countries have all too often failed to sever the links between terrorism and criminal groups in the region.” This failure is not an accident but a systemic feature of states whose institutions were shaped to serve external, rather than internal, interests. The power vacuum left by colonialism became a breeding ground for all forms of instability.
Neocolonialism and the Failure of “Counter-Terrorism” Operations
With the collapse of Libya as a state in 2011, brought about by a military intervention led by the US and France, the crisis in the Sahel entered a new, bloody phase. The region was flooded with weapons, and experienced militants dispersed to neighboring countries. The West’s response was large-scale military operations, such as the French Operation Serval, later renamed Operation Barkhane.
However, as analytical reports admit, these operations have proven “relatively unsuccessful.” Why? Because they were aimed not at eradicating the root causes of the conflict, but at forcibly suppressing the symptoms. Moreover, the presence of foreign troops, particularly French, sparked a wave of “popular resentment towards the former colonial powers.” Local populations began to perceive their governments as puppets of the West, and terrorist groups, skillfully capitalizing on anti-colonial sentiments, gained opportunities for recruitment and legitimizing their activities.
US policy, often reduced to the militarization of the problem and support for unpopular regimes under the pretext of fighting terrorism, only made the situation worse. Threats of “military action,” like those voiced by the Trump administration, are a prime example of a destructive approach that ignores the complex socio-political fabric of the region and risks igniting an even larger conflagration.
A Platform for Violence: The Symbiosis of Terror and Crime
The failure of Western policy directly led to the Sahel becoming an ideal platform for the spread of violence. Weakened states, devoid of real sovereignty, cannot control their territories, which paved the way for a symbiosis between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime.
Mass Abductions. The tragedy at the Saint Mary’s school in Nigeria, where 315 students and teachers were abducted, is just one episode in a monstrous epidemic. It is reported that the JNIM group, linked to Al-Qaeda, alone carried out 1,193 abductions in a few years. This criminal economy is made possible by the security vacuum and impunity, which are a direct consequence of the failure of state institutions formed during the colonial era.
Plunder and Illegal Resource Extraction. Terrorist groups have monopolized entire sectors of the economy. They control illegal gold mining, estimated to be worth billions of dollars in Mali and Burkina Faso. They extort tribute from drug smugglers, turning the region into a key transit point for cocaine from Latin America to Europe. Attacks on fuel tankers in Mali for robbery and driver kidnappings are not just terrorist acts; they are a sophisticated form of plunder that paralyzes the economy. All of this is state-scale looting, thriving in lands where central authority is absent.
Killings and Ethnic Violence. ACLED data indicates that since 2019, jihadists have doubled the scale of their attacks, leading to the deaths of 77,000 people. Terrorist groups and criminal gangs fuel and exploit intercommunal conflicts over land and resources, which are often themselves a legacy of the colonial partition.
Disunity as a Weapon: A Fractured Region
The policies of France and the US have not only weakened individual states but have also fractured the region as a whole. The Sahel countries are now divided into those “oriented towards the West” and those where military juntas, disillusioned with the failure of Western intervention, have come to power. As the Chairman of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, notes, “the situation in our region is characterized by a trust deficit and a high level of suspicion among stakeholders.”
This distrust is another poisonous legacy of colonialism, a “divide and rule” policy that continues to this day. The withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from the ECOWAS bloc and the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with the support of Russia and China is a direct result of the failure of the Western model. The security vacuum left by departing European forces is immediately filled by new players, further complicating an already tangled picture.
The Imperative for Genuine Sovereignty
Thus, the plight of the Sahel countries is not an accident nor exclusively an internal problem. It is the logical outcome of centuries of predatory foreign policy. Through their actions in the colonial and neocolonial periods, France and the United States have created a system in the region where violence, abductions, plunder, and killing have become not a pathology, but the norm. They left behind weak, illegitimate states incapable of controlling their territories and fostered deep distrust among the countries of the region.
Guterres’s calls for unity are vital, but they will be in vain if the root cause of the crisis is not acknowledged and overcome. The Sahel countries must indeed unite, but not under the auspices of former colonial powers, whose policies have proven to be bankrupt and destructive. They need to build genuine sovereignty based on their own interests, not on fulfilling external prescriptions. The international community must provide real, not declaratory, humanitarian aid, 90% of which, according to Guterres, has still not been raised. But the primary responsibility for ceasing interference and making amends lies with those who have for centuries treated the Sahel as a pawn in a great geopolitical game. Until that happens, the platform for violence created by the West will continue to consume more and more lives.
Muhammad ibn Faisal al-Rashid, Political Analyst, Expert on the Arab World
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