Editor’s Note: The Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute publishes these updates with support from the Institute for the Study of War.
Africa File Special Edition: One Year After Niger’s Coup
Author: Liam Karr
Data Cutoff: July 19, 2024
The Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.
Methodology Note: CTP classified insurgent attacks as all events in the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project database labeled as political violence where insurgent groups initiated the event, as well as events involving the forcible looting of civilians that were not branded as taxation.
Key Takeaways:
Nigerien Military and Diplomatic Activity. Niger’s junta has significantly altered its international and regional partnerships away from the West in its first year of power. Al Qaeda and IS militants have carried out deadlier attacks and consolidated control over more territory since the junta took power by taking advantage of security force limitations that the withdrawal of Western support has contributed to. ISSP’s advance creates more opportunities for it to contribute to transnational IS activity. The Nigerien junta’s counterinsurgency approach will likely increase communal violence and civilian casualties more broadly, and Niger’s new security partners will likely be unable to fully address Niger’s capacity and capability gaps to overcome this poor strategy.
Nigerien Economic Activity. The Nigerien junta has also sought to address economic challenges that could threaten regime stability by working with China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey to secure quick revenue.
ISSP. The Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) is consolidating control over a growing hub in the northeastern Tillaberi region that extends into the neighboring Tahoua region, across the border into Mali, and wraps around Niamey’s eastern flank. The group is predominantly targeting civilians across other areas of northern Tillaberi to play on ethnic tensions but is facing political and physical resistance from civilians and security forces.
JNIM. Al Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) is making inroads into southwestern Niger along two axes and encroaching on Niamey despite strong government efforts to degrade its havens along the Burkinabe border. Nigerien security forces have given top priority to degrading JNIM’s support zones along the Burkinabe border between these two areas and likely degraded JNIM’s freedom of movement.
Assessments:
Nigerien Military and Diplomatic Activity
Niger’s junta has significantly altered its international and regional partnerships away from the West in its first year of power. The Nigerien presidential guards launched a coup against democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26, 2023.[1] Niger’s other security forces fell in line over the next 24 hours despite the largely isolated initial motivations of the junta leader Abdirahmane Tiani.[2] The junta played upon preexisting anti-French grievances and popular backlash against punitive coup sanctions and French-backed threats of a regional invasion to topple the junta to consolidate control over the following weeks.[3]
Niger’s junta has gradually replaced Western security partners with alternatives, such as Russia and Turkey. The junta began to explore contracting Russian forces immediately after taking power and annulled defense deals with the EU and France, leading to the departure of 1,500 French troops in December 2023.[4] The junta signed agreements with Russia in December and January that resulted in 100 Russian soldiers arriving in Niger in April 2024.[5] These deals and Nigerien outreach to Iran contributed to a breakdown in Niger’s relationship with the United States, leading the junta to revoke its defense agreement with the United States in March 2024 and the withdrawal of all US forces by September 15, 2024.[6] The junta has also continued to rely on at least six Turkish drones and has reportedly contracted over a thousand Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries since December 2023, according to the UK-based human rights watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).[7] CTP cannot verify the figures in this claim, although the BBC and France24 have spoken with Syrian recruits.[8]
The junta has also tightened its relationship with the juntas in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali. The regimes signed a mutual defense pact called the Alliance of Sahel States in September 2023 to deter a military intervention from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional West African political bloc that threatened to forcibly depose the nascent Nigerien junta.[9] The juntas announced their withdrawal from ECOWAS in January 2024 and created the Confederation of Sahel States, and ECOWAS-like alternative, in July 2024.[10] CTP previously wrote about how the confederation expanded the operational scope of the alliance from a mutual defense agreement to a body that aims to coordinate diplomatic, economic, and security policies.[11]
Figure 1. Niger Diversifies Its Military Partners
Note: CTP based the trajectory assessments on the rate and depth of reported discussions and agreements.
Source: Liam Karr.
Al Qaeda and IS militants have carried out deadlier attacks and consolidated control over more territory since the junta took power by taking advantage of security force limitations that the withdrawal of Western support has contributed to. Insurgent groups are concentrating their forces to carry out increasingly lethal attacks against civilian and military targets. Attacks have decreased by over 20 percent in the first year of junta rule, and neither group has significantly expanded the geographic area of its operations.[12] However, civilian and military fatalities have more than doubled in the first year of junta rule compared with the previous year of democratic rule.[13] Insurgents have carried out nearly five times as many large-scale attacks that have killed 10 or more people during the past year compared with the previous year.[14]
Figure 2. Salafi-Jihadi Insurgents Intensify Attacks in Post-Coup Niger, 2023–24
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
Figure 3. Salafi-Jihadi Groups Establish Support in Post-Coup Niger, 2023–24
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
The junta does not have the capacity and capability to degrade the support zones that the insurgents use to conduct their attacks. Nigerien forces lack the manpower to escalate ground operations in response to the onslaught. Security forces initiated the exact same number of ground engagements with insurgents in the first year under the junta as they did in the previous year despite the increasing severity of attacks.[15] The junta instead increased its use of drone strikes, carrying out nine times as many drone strikes targeting insurgents across western Niger in the first year of the junta than the previous year.[16] However, the high rate of large insurgent attacks indicates that the introduction of more drone strikes has failed to degrade insurgents’ ability to gather and stage highly deadly attacks. Repeated drone strikes in some of the same locations also indicate that the drone strikes are not preventing insurgents from returning to targeted areas due to a lack of government presence.[17]
The loss of Western support has also contributed to the junta’s inability to disrupt and contain the insurgents. Roughly 1,500 French troops actively participated in counterinsurgency operations alongside Nigerien forces before they abruptly withdrew in December 2023.[18] Another 1,100 US troops were helping train Nigerien soldiers and conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations in support of French and Nigerien troops. These losses degraded the overall capacity and the ISR capabilities of counterinsurgency forces in Niger, which has almost certainly given the militants much greater freedom of movement and directly helped them stage larger and deadlier attacks.
Insurgent groups are taking advantage of these security gaps to consolidate large support zones in southwestern Niger, which is likely helping them conduct more lethal attacks. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded nearly 24 times as many reports of insurgent groups freely roaming western Niger in the first year of junta rule than it did the prior year.[19] ACLED also recorded a 25 percent increase in reports of insurgents extorting zakat “taxes” from Nigerien civilians.[20] Many of these reports also came from ISSP-dominated areas east of Niamey, in the Abala department and Tahoua region, and a JNIM enclave in the Tillaberi region, southwest of Niamey. These support zones let insurgents gather in greater numbers and access the requisite materials and space to make more sophisticated weapons, such as vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.
Figure 4. Major Salafi-Jihadi Developments in Niger
Source: Liam Karr and Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The growing emergence of an IS hub in the Sahel increases the group’s transnational threat risk. ISSP had already consolidated control over parts of northeastern Mali’s Menaka region after fighting JNIM in 2022 and 2023; JNIM had been the group’s primary challenger in the region since French forces withdrew from Mali in 2022.[21] The group’s expanding support zone in Niger connects across the border to these preexisting control zones. ISSP has also implemented governance measures across this swath of territory, such as shari’a punishments, repatriation of displaced civilians, infrastructure projects, and other health and security initiatives.[22] The group has encircled the regional capital and regularly attacks heavily armed Malian and Russian convoys that try to keep open the roads running west to Gao and south to Niger.[23]
IS can leverage ISSP’s growing control and resources to contribute to external plots in Europe. IS coordinates external activity through its General Directorate of Provinces.[24] The General Directorate of Provinces has regional offices that help coordinate this activity on the regional level. ISSP is part of the West Africa office, Maktab al Furqan.[25] IS has repeatedly used these offices to coordinate resources from multiple provinces to help fund, recruit, or otherwise facilitate external activity.[26] Spain disrupted an IS cell operating out of Morocco and Spain in 2021 that had links to ISSP, IS Khorasan Province in Afghanistan, and IS cells in Middle East and Europe.[27] ISSP’s location along migration and smuggling routes that run north to Europe create opportunities to continue using the group to support activity in Europe.
ISSP’s territorial gains have also attracted foreign fighters. The UN Security Council reported in August 2023 that IS recruiters and facilitators had established transit corridors between southern Europe and the Sahel.[28] Moroccan security forces have since disrupted three IS cells facilitating foreign fighters’ travel to ISSP in Mali in October 2023 and January–February 2024.[29]
The presence of foreign fighters historically has led to an increase in Salafi-jihadi groups’ external attack plots.[30] Foreign fighters are more hardened ideologues that ascribe to transnational Salafi-jihadism and are not as interested in the local aims or grievances that motivate local militants. Many foreign fighters have also demonstrated an interest in returning to their countries of origin to organize attacks after being further radicalized in an active conflict theater.[31] The IS network in northwest Africa has also already shown an interest in organizing external activity, given that the UN Security Council reported that IS had organized a now-disrupted cell with links to ISSP operating out of Morocco and Spain.[32]
The Nigerien junta’s counterinsurgency approach will likely increase communal violence and civilian casualties more broadly, which will benefit the insurgent groups. The Nigerien junta has adopted a military-first approach that emphasizes military action over dialogue. The military leaders have ended aspects of a preexisting defection program, decreasing the appeal to defectors and potential future defectors.[33] Communal militias have been more active in the year since the junta took power, although the junta has not made a coordinated effort to mobilize militias. Nigerien security forces have also engaged in greater indiscriminate violence, including drone strikes.[34] This strategy risks leading to similar outcomes to Niger’s allies in Burkina Faso and Mali, where state security forces and civilian militias have carried out widespread human rights abuses and indiscriminate violence against civilians since taking power.[35] Greater violence against civilians leads locals to cooperate with or support the insurgent groups for protection and revenge.[36]
Niger’s former civilian government used dialogue with local communities and insurgents to help better contain violence and the spread of the insurgency. Western Niger has a history of ethnic violence and communal mobilization, which ISSP has previously taken advantage of to recruit.[37] Niger’s former civilian government emphasized the importance of local peace deals as part of its counterinsurgency strategy to limit this kind of violence and radicalization.[38] These agreements have contributed to a decrease in violence and support for ISSP in parts of northern Tillaberi. The prior government also attempted to engage in insurgents directly. Niger ran a strong defection program, had negotiation channels with insurgents to deal with hostage negotiations, and even sought to open direct dialogue with jihadist leaders.[39] The efforts with leadership never led to any breakthroughs, but similar discussions have helped moderate violence against civilians at the local level in Mali.
Niger’s new security partners will likely be unable to fully address Niger’s capacity and capability gaps and overcome the junta’s poor strategy that is strengthening the insurgent groups. Russia has been ineffective at supporting regional counterterrorism operations and faces significant capacity challenges, including its ongoing war in Ukraine, that will limit its ability to send more soldiers to Niger. Wagner Group forces failed to slow the Salafi-jihadi insurgency in Mozambique in 2019, and the 1,000–2,000 Russian soldiers in Mali have not degraded the insurgency there.[40] Russian soldiers’ brutal tactics are also counterproductive, as they exacerbate human rights abuses against civilians that insurgent groups use to gain popular support.[41]
Africa Corps has faced recruitment issues that a Kremlin-affiliated milblogger said delayed its initial deployment to Niger.[42] The Kremlin halved its initial recruiting goal for the Ministry of Defense–affiliated Africa Corps, from 40,000 soldiers by the end of 2023 to 20,000, after Africa Corps subsumed Wagner Group’s Africa operations in August 2023, but it still failed to meet the adjusted goal.[43] The Kremlin has also deployed Africa Corps personnel to participate in its war in Ukraine in 2024, underscoring that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine limits its capacity to expand its operations across Africa.[44] Africa Corps is continuing recruitment efforts and is increasing its force presence in Africa. For example, Africa Corps sent thousands of reinforcements to Libya in 2024 that CTP previously assessed will likely be redeployed to sub-Saharan Africa.[45]
Turkish drones and mercenaries are improving the government’s ability to compensate for its manpower shortages but are still not enough to enable the junta to disrupt or degrade insurgent operations across all of western Niger. Turkish drones help the government challenge insurgent-controlled areas or areas where state forces are absent. However, drone strikes without a ground component allow insurgents to reenter the area and are not a sustainable counterinsurgency tool alone. Niger and Turkey also discussed strengthening intelligence and defense cooperation following a Turkish ministerial visit on July 17.[46]
SOHR reported in January 2024 that an initial batch of 300 Turkish-recruited, Turkish-trained, salaried Syrian mercenaries from the Sadat International Defense Consultancy deployed in Burkina Faso and Niger in December 2023.[47] SOHR claimed in May that this number had risen to at least 1,100 in Niger.[48] Sadat is a Turkish private military company run by a former intelligence officer with close ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.[49] The mercenaries are reportedly primarily tasked with protecting crucial economic sites where the Turkish government has a shared stake, such as mines.[50] This enables the army to redirect its forces to engage in more offensive counterinsurgency operations. However, the Nigerien junta’s military-first strategy limits the effectiveness of such operations.
CTP cannot confirm SOHR’s figures that there are over 1,000 Syrian mercenaries in Niger. The BBC and France24 spoke with Syrian recruits to confirm their presence in Niger, but there has been a general lack of evidence of their activity in Niger across social and traditional media.[51] This lack of information indicates that the mercenaries are not present on this scale or are unusually discreet. BBC reported that commanders in Niger confiscate recruits’ phones, which clarifies some of the lack of information.[52] However, this does not explain the general lack of coverage on local or social media about the presence of foreign Arab mercenaries operating in the country.
Russian and Turkish support is not large enough or of high enough quality to effectively replace the departure of French and US support. The alleged 1,100 Turkish mercenaries and roughly 100 Russian troops that arrived in Niger in 2024 are fewer than the 2,600 Western forces that the junta has kicked out. Russia and Turkey also do not provide the same quality of ISR support as Western forces, which has almost certainly given the militants much greater freedom of movement and directly contributed to their ability to stage larger and deadlier attacks.
Nigerien Economic Activity
The Nigerien junta also faces economic challenges that could threaten regime stability. The junta is still experiencing significant economic shortfalls after the regional West African economic bloc lifted sanctions in February. The sanctions severely harmed the already-weak Nigerien economy by closing nearly all borders and trade with Niger, suspending the government’s financial transactions, and freezing the country’s assets in external banks.[53] The fallout led the junta to slash its 2023 budget by 40 percent and default on four debt payments totaling $519 million since taking power, in July 2023.[54] The World Bank projected Niger’s economic growth in 2024 to be 45 percent less than pre-coup estimates.[55] These issues have inflated food prices and contributed to at least 1.1 million Nigeriens falling below the extreme poverty threshold since the coup, bringing the total number to 14.1 million people—roughly 54 percent of the population.[56]
Ongoing military and diplomatic disputes are compounding the junta’s economic struggles. Anti-junta rebels have attacked and disabled some segments of an oil pipeline that exports Niger’s oil to shippers in the Gulf of Guinea.[57] A diplomatic dispute with Benin, which the pipeline runs through, is also preventing oil exports.[58]
Niger leaving ECOWAS would eliminate free trade and visa-free living and work provisions between Niger and ECOWAS countries.[59] This would harm cross-border economies and already-marginalized border communities, especially along the 1,000-mile-long Niger-Nigeria border.[60] The elimination of free trade provisions would also potentially lead to tariff barriers and other transaction costs. Tariffs would disproportionately affect Niger as an import-dependent and landlocked country.[61]
The junta has sought to address its economic woes by working with China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey to secure quick revenue. Russia and Turkey are interested in obtaining mining permits for two uranium mines that the junta withdrew from Western companies in July 2024. The junta withdrew the permits from French state-owned Orano and Canadian-owned GoviEx in June and July 2024 over disagreements with the firms’ proposed timelines and target areas.[62] Bloomberg reported that the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom and Turkey are seeking to take over these uranium assets in Niger and are in initial talks with the Nigerien junta.[63] Unspecified Russian energy investors also visited Niger as part of a larger Kremlin delegation in early June, which could refer to Rosatom representatives given Rosatom’s prominence in Russia’s energy policy in Africa.[64] Turkey is heavily dependent on Rosatom for its nuclear power ambitions, as it signed deals with Rosatom to build the three planned power plants and provide fuel.[65]
Figure 5. Niger Diversifies Its Economic Partners
Note: CTP based the trajectory assessments on the rate and depth of reported discussions and agreements.
Source: Liam Karr.
Turkey is also trying to strengthen other economic ties with Niger. Turkey has historically focused on Niger as an investment target for the Turkish defense and industrial sectors. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led a diplomatic charge in the Sahel in 2012 and 2013 that laid the foundation for significant infrastructure investment in 2019 and a defense deal in 2020.[66] A high-ranking Turkish delegation visited Niger on July 17 to resume and strengthen this cooperation.[67] Turkey and Niger signed a declaration of intent to support and encourage more Turkish companies to invest in developing oil and natural gas fields in Niger.[68] Turkish and Nigerien officials also agreed to create working groups to focus on energy and mining partnerships, as well as economic and trade cooperation.[69]
China is already heavily cooperating with Niger on petroleum production. Niger has had a joint petroleum production agreement with China since 2008. China owns a majority stake in crucial Nigerien facilities, such as Niger’s largest oil field, its lone refinery, and the oil pipeline to Benin.[70] The Nigerien junta signed an agreement in March with a Chinese state-owned company to receive a $400 million advance on its share of future oil sales through the pipeline in Niger.[71] The junta reportedly plans to use the money to repay part of its regional debt.[72] China is also working on several infrastructure projects in Niger.[73]
Iran has shown interest in being an economic and defense ally to Niger but has not made as much progress as Niger’s other partners. French media reported in May that the junta has engaged in direct uranium-for-arms talks with Iran since the end of 2023.[74] A March Wall Street Journal report supports these claims and notes that US officials warned Niger against selling Iran uranium.[75] Iran also signed several agreements on energy and economic cooperation with Niger in January 2024 and held follow-up meetings in March.[76] However, CTP has not observed any implementation of these plans, and follow-through has previously been an issue for Iranian engagement in Africa.[77]
ISSP
ISSP is consolidating control over a growing hub in the northeastern Tillaberi region that extends into the neighboring Tahoua region, across the border into Mali, and wraps around Niamey’s eastern flank. ISSP is consolidating control over a large area covering part of the Tahoua region and extending west into Tillaberi’s Abala department. ACLED recorded 45 instances of ISSP movement in this area in the first year of junta rule after recording no such activity in the previous year.[78] CTP cannot verify whether a methodological or source change in the ACLED database contributed to this change. However, ACLED recorded other insurgent movements in the year before the coup, indicating this is a genuine development.[79]
Figure 6. ISSP Strengthens and Expands Support Zones in Western Niger
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
Increased reports of zakat extortion and religious regulation support the assessment that ISSP is consolidating control in these areas. ISSP was already extorting civilians throughout Tahoua in the year before the coup, but this activity increased by 30 percent according to ACLED.[80] ISSP began taxing civilians in Abala more extensively under the junta, as the reported instances jumped from two in the year before the coup to nine in the first year of junta rule.[81] ISSP also dictated local Eid celebrations in northern Abala in April 2024 and claimed to carry out shari’a punishments near the Mali-Niger border.[82]
Figure 7. ISSP Strengthens Support near the Malian Border in Post-Coup Niger
Note: Data are from Tahoua region and Abala department, Tillaberi region.
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
ISSP has also carried out increasingly lethal attacks against the Nigerien military in Tahoua, likely to keep security forces out of these support zones. Nigerien security force fatalities in Tahoua more than tripled under the first year of junta rule.[83] This spike is mostly due to a massive ISSP ambush in October 2023 that local sources claimed killed over 100 soldiers and involved sophisticated weaponry such as suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.[84] All these factors indicate the area is part of or near to an ISSP support zone that would be required to stage such an attack.
Security forces have decreased their rate of activity in Tahoua, likely due to a lack of capacity and will. Nigerien security forces in Tahoua reportedly refused to leave their bases after the deadly October ambush, presumably contributing to the decrease in activity in the region.[85] The 1,500 French troops that withdrew from Niger were also focused on supporting Nigerien soldiers to degrade ISSP along the Malian border.[86] The 1,100 US personnel in Niger before the coup conducted ISR support for these operations.[87] The Nigerien junta has increased its activity in other areas of Niger along the Burkinabe border, indicating it is giving priority to those areas and cannot compensate for the capacity cuts following the French and US withdrawals.[88]
Figure 8. ISSP Intensifies Attacks in the Tahoua Region in Post-Coup Niger
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
ISSP is increasingly extending this support zone farther south down Niamey’s eastern flank into the Dosso region. ISSP carried out its first-ever attacks on the road connecting the department capitals Balleyara and Filingue in the past year.[89] ISSP already had a quiet presence near the borders with Tillaberi, Tahoua, and northeastern Dosso before the coup and carried out occasional zakat extortion.[90] The reported instances of zakat extortion have decreased since the coup, but these reports moved farther west near Loga, which is closer to Niamey.[91] Meanwhile, the group has enjoyed much greater freedom of movement throughout Dosso and faced little resistance in the areas it had been collecting zakat before.[92] These trends indicate that it has consolidated a degree of control in the area, which would contribute to suppressed reports coming out of the area.
ISSP is predominantly targeting civilians in the tri-border region covering parts of the Niger River Valley and the Burkinabe and Malian borders in northwestern Tillaberi to play on ethnic tensions, but it faces resistance from civilians and security forces. ISSP has decreased its overall attacks by 36 percent across Ayorou, Bankilare, Tera, and Tillaberi departments but more than tripled the number of fatalities it has inflicted in these attacks.[93] Over 70 percent of both attacks and fatalities are from targeting civilians or civilian militias.[94] This ratio is consistent with the pre-coup period. ISSP has regularly targeted civilians in this area to play on ethnic grievances between the traditionally nomadic Fulani ethnic group that it primarily recruits from and other traditionally sedentary ethnic groups in the region.[95]
Figure 9. ISSP Targets Civilians in the Niger River Valley and Tri-Border Area
Note: Data are from Ayorou, Baniklare, Tera, and Tillaberi departments, Tillaberi region, Niger from July 2023 to July 2024.
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
The junta has given greater priority to contesting ISSP in the Tera department over other parts of the country. Security force activity across all four departments has decreased by over 30 percent.[96] However, nearly one-quarter of all ground operations in the post-coup period have occurred in Tera.[97] This activity and communal mobilization efforts have possibly contributed to the failure of ISSP to establish strong support zones in most of this area. Zakat and movement reports have both decreased in the post-coup period.[98] However, increasingly high civilian casualties risk spiraling into even greater communal violence that risks further increasing civilian casualties or breaking civilian resistance.
Figure 10. ISSP Focuses on Civilian Targets in the Tri-Border Region and Niger River Valley
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
Local peace agreements signed under Niger’s democratic government likely contributed to sharp decreases in fatalities and attacks in northern Tillaberi over the past year. ISSP has decreased its attacks across Banibangou and Ouallam departments in the post-coup period as it has elsewhere across Niger.[99] However, ISSP fatalities in this area have also generally lowered, unlike in many other parts of the country.[100] ISSP has killed only three civilians in Banibangou department since January 2023, all of whom it described as military spies.[101] ACLED did not record any ISSP attacks in Ouallam department between July and November 2023.[102] The group has resorted to mostly targeting civilians in small-scale looting attacks across both departments and has not developed stronger support zones throughout the area.[103]
This decrease in ISSP activity aligns with the signing of peace agreements in Banibangou in January 2023 and Ouallam in June 2023.[104] Such peace agreements limit ISSP’s ability to appeal to ethnic grievances to recruit and mobilize locals. Nigerien security forces are likely not responsible for the dampened ISSP activity. Nigerien forces have not increased their ground activity and initiated ground engagements with ISSP only three times in the first year of junta rule.[105] The junta introduced drone strikes in the area but only conducted six such strikes.[106] This low total number indicates that those strikes are not primarily responsible for the downturn in ISSP activity.
JNIM
JNIM is making inroads into southwestern Niger along two axes and encroaching on Niamey despite strong government efforts to degrade its havens along the Burkinabe border. JNIM launched an offensive against security forces and local militias in Gotheye department between Gotheye city and the Samira mine near the Burkinabe border in early 2024. The campaign has subsided since February, but JNIM has regularly attacked Nigerien security forces attempting to reach Samira since April.[107] This activity pattern indicates that JNIM has established some control, degraded local militias, and is now trying to keep security forces from re-entering the area.
This offensive contributed to an increase in both the number of attacks and fatalities in the area in the post-junta period. JNIM significantly increased improvised explosive device (IED) attacks targeting security forces traveling the road in the area, attacked local communal militias, and expanded attacks closer to Gotheye city than it had previously.[108] One of the militia clashes in February killed at least 34 militiamen, which is more than six times the total number of casualties across Gotheye in the year before the coup.[109]
Figure 11. JNIM Escalates Attacks in Western Niger in 2024
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Database.
JNIM is also heavily contesting the Ouro Gueladjo area between the department capitals of Torodi and Say. JNIM was already present in the area before the coup and had evicted several nearby villages in early July 2023.[110] JNIM has since significantly increased IED and ambush attacks on security forces in the vicinity of Ouro Gueladjo.[111] These attacks signal a JNIM effort to isolate the security forces in the town and protect the support zones established in July 2023. The continued pace of JNIM attacks further indicates the group has been successful and that security forces have not degraded its capabilities in the area.[112]
CTP previously assessed that JNIM aims to consolidate support zones in this area to amplify pressure on the roads surrounding Niamey.[113] JNIM’s attack campaigns near Samira and Ouro Gueladjo are near key roads leading to the capital. JNIM has already used its havens around Ouro Gueladjo and the Torodi district to attack the RN6 connecting Torodi town and Niamey. Militants can use the same havens they use to attack Ouro Gueladjo to facilitate attacks on the RN27, which connects Say and Niamey. JNIM support zones in the Gotheye department would also enable the group to conduct attacks along the RN1 or RN4 highways that run along the Niger River and connect several department capitals in northwestern Niger to Niamey.
Degrading Nigerien lines of communication around the capital fits JNIM’s historical pattern of avoiding decisive battles for large population centers in favor of siege tactics that isolate security forces and spur favorable negotiations.[114] JNIM has been conducting such an attack campaign around the Malian capital since early 2023.[115]
Nigerien security forces have given top priority to degrading JNIM’s support zones along the Burkinabe border between these two axes and likely degraded JNIM’s freedom of movement. Security forces have doubled the number of ground engagements with JNIM along the border in Torodi department since the junta took power.[116] These efforts included large-scale operations in January 2024 that Nigerien officials claimed resulted in more than 50 militant fatalities and over 30 IEDs seized.[117] Nigerien forces have also most heavily leveraged drone strikes in this area. The junta launched at least nine drone strikes targeting JNIM support zones along the Burkinabe border, which amounts to one-third of all Nigerien drone strikes against insurgents in the past year.[118] Over half of these strikes have targeted the Koloukolou area roughly a mile from the Burkinabe border.[119]
These efforts have likely degraded JNIM’s ability to sustain support zones farther into Niger. Widespread reports of JNIM zakat extortion in November 2023 indicate that JNIM had established a support zone farther inland between its two campaign axes.[120] However, there has been no reported JNIM activity from the area since then outside of a sporadic IED attack.[121] This pattern indicates that the security force pressure on JNIM’s border havens has degraded their ability to reach or sustain a presence in this area. However, the heightened pressure has not degraded JNIM’s attack capabilities. JNIM claimed that it killed 41 soldiers in an attack on a Nigerien army base near the Burkinabe border in May 2024.[122] Local sources estimated an even higher death toll and claimed that the junta was contemplating closing the base, which would undermine security forces’ ability to sustain pressure on the border area.[123]
JNIM’s growing strength across the border in eastern Burkina Faso also limits the Nigerien junta’s ability to degrade the areas JNIM uses to support its campaigns in Niger. JNIM has carried out increasingly large and deadly attacks in eastern Burkina Faso throughout 2024. Hundreds of JNIM fighters killed at least 20 security forces and civilians in an attack on May 5.[124] This attack builds on another attack that overran a Burkinabe base and a nearby town on March 31.[125] Increased reports of zakat collection following the March attack indicate that JNIM is using these attacks to isolate government-controlled population centers and consolidate support zones in rural areas along the border, which can use to support its campaigns in Niger.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/soldiers-nigers-presidential-guard-blockade-presidents-office-security-sources-2023-07-26; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/26/soldiers-holding-niger-president-inside-palace-security-source; https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1467056/politique/au-niger-tentative-de-coup-detat-contre-mohamed-bazoum
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