On January 8, the al-Qaida affiliated group Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) launched a meticulously planned assault on a fortified military post in northern Benin’s Alibori region, near the country’s borders with Burkina Faso and Niger. The attack claimed the lives of 28 soldiers, injured dozens more and sent shockwaves through a region long considered a fragile but reliable buffer against the violence of the nearby Sahel.

Type: Analysis

As policymakers monitor the spread of terrorist violence and warfare from the Sahel region, one broad threat to international and U.S. interests is West Africa’s 3.4 million people uprooted by the Sahel’s chaos. So far, over 110,000 have fled to four West African coastal states, a migration that signals new dangers to the region’s democracies, and to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the multinational body that for decades has been central to promoting region-wide stability.

Type: Analysis

The countries of Coastal West Africa are currently facing significant challenges to peace and security as extremist violence spills over from the neighboring Sahel region. Attacks in 2022 in the northern parts of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo illustrate the immediacy and gravity of the threat, and governments across the subregion are grappling with protecting fragile communities in the north, addressing porous borders that facilitate attacks from neighboring states, and building the capacity of security forces to address the threat.

Type: Report