In July 2026, media sources reported that U.S. President Donald Trump was considering military strikes against the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) in Mali. Within al-Qaeda’s global terror network, JNIM in particular is an international threat in its own right. Founded in 2017 in Mali, JNIM’s terror activities have displaced millions, killed thousands, and destabilized numerous governments across the Sahel. JNIM has proven indomitable as it has evaded multiple waves of domestic and international counterterrorism policies and military deployments. The jihadist group solidified itself as a critical threat in the first half of the 2020’s when Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger succumbed to a series of military takeovers by ill-prepared coup leaders intent on severing ties with the West. Accordingly, significant gaps in defense and safety throughout the forementioned states allowed JNIM to evolve from a violent insurgency into a destabilizing movement that has reshaped the Sahel into the global epicenter of jihadist violence. As JNIM increases operations within Benin, Porto-Novo will require a counterterrorism response that is proven, proactive, and nuanced enough to overcome this resilient threat. Understanding potential challenges ahead and developing a successful response against JNIM requires deep understanding of their constantly evolving strategy. Below, the analysis offers insight on the challenges ahead for Benin with particular emphasis on how JNIM has weaponized public entrenchment, intercommunal conflict, and state delegitimization to significantly destabilize a region while expanding their movement.

JNIM’s Strategic Vision: Public Endangerment to Entrenchment

Upon its founding in 2017, JNIM primarily relied on a tactical formula of ambushes and suicide bombings targeting civilians, state officials, and security personnel. These frequent, high-fatality attacks underscored JNIM’s operational persistence and emphasized the devastating risks linked with their presence. As Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger’s coup leaders transitioned away from internationally-backed counterterrorism programs towards Russian-sponsored private mercenary forces and civilian militias, JNIM also adjusted their strategy in response to this personnel change. Indiscriminate violence against civilians perpetuated by mercenary groups and locally-led militias further prompted JNIM’s strategy change. Accordingly, the militant group began supplmenting their violent tactics with economic and social terrorism aimed towards weakening state legitimacy and asserting control over the public.

JNIM has coerced public compliance through taxation and economic blockades limiting the passage of fuel, critical aid, and humanitarian services throughout the region. Promises to protect communities from state-sponsored violence have also added to the movement’s legitimacy, however, JNIM’s compulsory conscription of boys and young men places the most vulnerable civilans on the frontlines of violence. Despite their tyrannical program, JNIM has managed to gain the public’s respect through the mediation of intercommunal conflicts—a public concern often overlooked by the state. At its core, JNIM remains a fundamental Islamist group. In areas under its control, the group enforces ideological compliance, strict dress codes, music bans, and the segregation of men and women in public spaces. Accordingly, those accused of noncompliance are subject to excessive punishment. Rather than remaining a violently militant domestic threat, JNIM has transformed into a heavy-handed shadow government normalizing displacement, terror, and long-term political and economic instability throughout the Sahel.

Beyond the Sahel: JNIM in Benin

JNIM’s unobstructed success in the Sahel has enabled the group to expand its horizons, specifically toward wealthier coastal countries such as Benin. Given the proximity to northern Benin, territorial strongholds in Burkina Faso and Niger have streamlined the militant group’s expansion into the country. This tri-border region—especially areas near the shared W-Arly-Pendjari protected wildlife complex—has therefore emerged as a key operational zone for the terror outfit. These borderlands are crucial to JNIM’s expansion, as the tumultuous terrain easily conceals fighters, offers reliable supply routes, and also serves as the optimal staging ground and launch area for cross-border attacks.

Although JNIM carried out its first attack in Benin in 2021, attacks were minimal until 2025. In January of that year, JNIM attacked a military base in Alibori, northern Benin, killing at least 28 soldiers. Attacks then escalated, and in the first four months of 2025, JNIM killed at least 88 military personnel. In comparison, fatalities resulting from JNIM attacks between 2021 and 2024 resulted in a reported total of 120 deaths. These figures highlight a dangerous trajectory as fatalities exponentially increased in a period of four months. The drastic increase also confirms the destructive impact of JNIM’s targeted campaigns.

Alarmingly, JNIM’s leadership has appointed two prominent leaders to secure the movement’s development in Benin. Most noteworthy is the appointment of Sheikh Mohamed Albani as the country's emir. The appointment of an emir signals the strategic importance of an area and also implies a long-term commitment in maintaining an operational base within the country. Along with Albani, Burkinabe senior leader Sekou Muslimu has been tasked with leading, initiating, and actualizing expansion efforts. These “expansion efforts” also encompass Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, and Togo. If Muslimu’s designated portfolio is any indication of where JNIM seeks to expand next, Benin is just the starting point of the terror group’s geographical ambitions.

Consequently, JNIM’s newest enterprise may also embolden other terror groups to stake a claim in Benin. JNIM offshoot Katiba Hanfia has already increased activities in northern Benin’s departments of Borgou and Atacora which saw militants attack, intimidate, and kidnap security personnel and villagers. It is important to note that Porto-Novo has adjusted its counterterrorism response to combat the jihadist overflow. Since early 2025, the Beninese army has intensified its military campaign in northern Benin. Although the operations have reportedly decreased the group’s movement along key border areas, Benin’s deployment of additional military forces also confirms a harsh reality: spillover violence from the Sahel is calculated and determined and will potentially require more than military intervention to eliminate the growing threat of violent extremism.

JNIM’s Exploitation of Local Conflicts and Lessons for Benin

As the newest addition to JNIM’s territorial dossier, Benin can look to lessons learned in Burkina Faso and Mali to develop an effective and sustainable response to the militant group. Outside of military response, interethnic relationships require significant consideration. As part of its comprehensive strategy, JNIM has embedded itself across communities in Mali and Burkina Faso in ways that have resuscitated dormant communal conflicts. The group has expertly leveraged social divisions among marginalized and persecuted groups to weaken intercommunal ties and further challenge the status quo. As such, JNIM has adopted the plight of the historically disenfranchised Fulani to reactivate interethnic dissension and violence.

Discrimination against the Fulani has drastically increased since the onset of the insurgency as ethnic rivals have at times accused the nomadic and mostly Islamic community of being affiliated with militant Islamist groups. Unfortunately, ethnic prejudice is not only recorded throughout local communities. Ethnic-based violence has significantly increased where state-sponsored local counterterrorism militias have emerged in response to jihadist threats. Although these militias promise improved local security, they also introduce additional risks of indiscriminate violence to civilians. In some cases, these pro-government forces have proven more dangerous that the jihadists. Since 2023, state forces and allied militias in Mali and Burkina Faso have carried out more violence against civilians than militant Islamist groups. Civilian-led militias operate in a nebulous security space, where regulation and accountability are not clearly mandated. Without codified safeguards, ethnic discrimination can be used to justify state-led operations targeting communities accused of cooperating with jihadists. More often than not, arbitrary ethnic-based operations are bloody, gruesome, and nothing less than ethnic cleansing. Multiple reports of summary executions, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances of Fulani at the hands of the Malian army in cooperation with state-funded Russian mercenaries, and the violent targeting of entire Fulani communities by Burkina Faso’s Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) militia, further confirm the brutal danger and fatal reality of mismanaged military operations and ethnic discrimination.

The ostracization of marginalized groups by the public and the state has therefore benefitted JNIM’s recruitment numbers. Vulnerable civilians may join the movement for protection from ethnic rivals or may even enlist in protest of the collective discrimination endured by their communities. Increasing state negligence of oppressed communities has also allowed JNIM to position itself as a provider of public services. In some cases, the jihadist group has mediated local disputes over land, resources, or political representation, further delegitimizing the state and its authority. Offering basic services where state institutions are weak or absent further boosts JNIM’s profile as an alternative, albeit marginally, to an unresponsive government.

Based on the case study above, Benin would require not only an increase in counterterrorism operations but the establishment of national reconciliation frameworks to promote interethnic cooperation before dissension devolves into civil war. Although Benin has not experienced extensive interethnic violence, as the northern part of the country continues to combat the terrorist threat, there is further potential for conflict over how much state-sponsored security and resources should be allocated towards areas deemed affected versus vulnerable.

Conclusion

JNIM has entered a new phase of their insurgency as they set their sights on the western African coast. As the group relies on a strategy of carrying out violence and escalating civil unrest, they are also developing the groundwork to potentially destabilize coastal economies, disrupt global trade routes, and redefine how quickly an insurgency evolves from a regional issue into an international crisis. What began as a Sahel-based insurgency has now triggered regional and increasingly global action as seen in President Trump’s July 2026 military deliberations. By pushing toward the Gulf of Guinea, JNIM gains proximity to critical maritime trade routes that connect African economies to Europe, the Americas, and Asia, more likely leading to the disruption of shipping and energy flows. Additionaly, easier access to more established al-Qaeda affiliates—such as Somalia’s al-Shabaab—could further empower the terror group in strengthening al-Qaeda’s global brand. As two of al-Qaeda’s largest affiliates, growing cooperation between JNIM and al-Shabaab and their increasing coverage of western and eastern Africa would immediately endanger central Africa. Their alliance would also elevate the potential for intergroup trafficking, piracy, and even external attack planning. Overall, a sustained foothold in coastal states offers JNIM access to additional revenue streams, recruitment pools, and logistical networks. JNIM is ruthless and resilient, but most of all, an increasingly entrenched international threat.