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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Sahel Jihad Closing in on Nigeria |
| 2026-08-13 |
| By Mike Odeh James [TruthNigeria] The al-Qaeda blockade choking Bamako, capital of Mali, the jihadist siege engulfing Burkina Faso, and the world’s most active Islamic State affiliate are converging on Nigeria. That is the picture emerging from the United Nations Secretary-General’s 23rd strategic report on ISIL/Da’esh, delivered to the Security Council on Aug. 5. Circulated to Council members on July 30 as document S/2026/638, it names Africa the current epicenter of Islamic State activity worldwide and singles out the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) as the movement’s most active affiliate on the planet. Read against events in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria’s own troubled peripheries, the document describes a regional collapse now closing in on Africa’s most populous nation — and one Washington has quietly begun rehearsing responses to. BAMAKO UNDER SIEGE The most dramatic evidence is in Mali. Since September 3, 2025, al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has waged an economic war on Bamako, attacking the tanker convoys that carry roughly 95 percent of the landlocked country’s fuel from its northern neighbor, Senegal, and its southern neighbor, Côte d’Ivoire. More than 300 tankers have been destroyed since. On April 25, 2026, Mali’s defense minister, General Sadio Camara, was killed in a JNIM/FLA car-bomb attack at Kati, near Bamako. Junta leader Assimi Goïta now moves fuel into the capital only under armed escort by soldiers and Russia’s Africa Corps. OUAGADOUGOU: A MOGADISHU SCENARIO Next door in Burkina Faso, analysts estimate that JNIM and Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) control as much as 60 percent of national territory. Captain Ibrahim Traoré’s junta has dissolved every political party, expelled the top UN representative, banned 118 NGOs, and in June formally severed all diplomatic ties with France. In October 2025, JNIM claimed its first attack on Nigerian soil near the Benin border. Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) has since pushed into Sokoto and Kebbi states through Lakurawa (“the recruits”) — a group originating from Mali and now, per the Nigerian military, imposes “zakat” levies, abducts schoolchildren, and cooperates with Boko Haram. On February 3, 2026, Lakurawa-linked gunmen killed at least 162 people in Woro and Noko villages in Kwara State, deep inside the Middle Belt. On December 25, 2025, US forces struck ISSP camps in Tangaza county, Sokoto – the first known American kinetic action inside Nigeria against a Sahel-linked affiliate. “The implications for Christians in the Middle Belt are very bleak,” Adakole Adam, of Adamson Security Consultancy in Takum, told TruthNigeria. “The jihadists from the Sahel are bent on exterminating Christianity. Look at what they are doing in Burkina Faso, burning churches and killing Christians. ISWAP and Boko Haram are already doing the same in the Northeast, and Ansaru in the Northwest. Jihadists from Mali are now flocking into Nigeria through Benin Republic, and from there they push into the Middle Belt states.” In the Northeast, ISWAP alone commands between 8,000 and 12,000 fighters, and UN monitors say the affiliate is now acquiring and employing commercial drones. More at the link Related: Bamako: 2026-08-06 Mauritanians Still Detained in Mali Bamako: 2026-08-03 Russian ship defies sanctions to send military vehicles to Mali Bamako: 2026-07-26 Negotiations are the junta's last card to prevent the fall of Bamako; and the FLA refuses any agreement with the putschists Related: ISWAP: 2026-08-10 ISWAP Leadership crises deepens as Four Shura Council Members reportedly executed ISWAP: 2026-08-10 Nigeria: Military Airstrikes neutralizes nine terrorists, destroy logistics carts in Borno ISWAP: 2026-08-09 Nigeria: Troops intercept three suspected terrorists in Borno, one killed while attempting escape Related: JNIM: 2026-08-12 Malian forces arrested several Fulani civilians in San JNIM: 2026-08-11 JNIM claims to have seized the San military base in Mali JNIM: 2026-08-06 ONSA-Coordinated security operation rescues 308 kidnap vctims in Kwara, Niger Related: Lakurawa: 2026-07-12 January - June 2026 Balance: Attacks by armed groups in west Africa Lakurawa: 2026-06-18 Benin, Niger, and Nigeria: Islamic State Sahel Province claims its first operations in Nigeria since 2019 Lakurawa: 2026-06-09 Dozos militias in the Bandiagara region have laid down their arms in the face of JNIM terrorists Related: ISSP: 2026-08-03 Hundreds have fled jihadist attacks in southwest Niger — officials ISSP: 2026-07-30 An inevitable and large-scale clash is brewing in the Sahel between the two rival terrorist groups ISSP: 2026-07-29 Fragmented security allows terrorists’ cross-mobility across Lake Chad and Sahel |
| Posted by:badanov |