Hakeem Onapajo
September 23rd, 2026
25 years after 9/11 West Africa bears the brunt of the War on Terror
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Africa at LSE
LSE’s engagement with Africa
Instead of eradicating terrorism, 25 years of the War on Terror have left parts of West Africa suffering from increased securitisation and more terrorist attacks, writes Hakeem Onapajo.
Twenty-five years ago, the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon sent shockwaves across the world. The attack, by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, marked the first foreign terrorist attack on US soil and radically changed the nature of global security and how states respond to the threat of terrorism.
In a fierce response to the terror attacks, Washington launched the War on Terror, which caused a fundamental shift in the US’s approach to terrorism as a global security threat requiring military, diplomatic, and political strategies.
In Afghanistan, the US spent over £340 billion in the first ten years (2001-2011) of its war with the Taliban, according to the <a href="https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2011/annual-costs-war-afghanistan/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>National Priorities Project’s report.
Except for Kenya and Tanzania – which had experienced earlier terror attacks against US interests, African states were not immediately connected to the War on Terror. It was only after the realisation that Africa’s fragile states are potential havens for terrorist groups that Washington extended its campaigns to the region.
Transnational terrorism in West Africa
States in West Africa’s Sahel have battled localised insurgencies, but the region gradually became a theatre for international terrorism. Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb aligned with the existing Salafi groups and rapidly spread to northern Mali, Niger, and Mauritania. The rapid expansion was enabled by large ungoverned spaces, ineffective government, and ongoing Tuareg conflict, who are fighting Mali and Niger for an independent state.
Between 2007 and 2012, transnational terrorism grew effectively in West Africa as deadly insurgent groups emerged in many states, launching horrible attacks on civilians. They included the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, Ansar Dine in Mali, and Boko Haram in Northeastern Nigeria. By 2015, ISIS had established a presence in West Africa following Boko Haram’s declaration of allegiance to their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leading to the creation of the Islamic State in the West African Province.
Washington was initially cautious about intervening in the Sahelian crisis, limiting interventions to building state capacity and providing military assistance. The US Department of State established the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI) in 2002, targeting Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, to strengthen border security and help the states combat the threat of terrorism.
In 2005, the PSI expanded into the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership, extending to more states, including Nigeria and Senegal and Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Partnership was meant to combine non-military strategies with the military component of the counter-terrorism programme in the targeted states.
The establishment of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007 signalled US readiness for a long military campaign in Africa. Washington increased military cooperation in the France-led military operations in the Sahel and provided extensive military assistance and training to the Multi-National Joint Task Force to counter Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin. Washington further established Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger, for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance across the Sahel. The US government also supported the G5 Sahel initiative, comprising Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania.
US military airstrikes in Nigeria in December 2025, targeting terrorist enclaves, and the deployment of an undisclosed number of American military personnel in February 2026 for joint military operations with the Nigerian military to confront ISIS-linked groups in the country, demonstrated Washington’s direct military approach in West Africa.
The effects in West Africa
Huge US counter-terrorism investment in Africa failed to achieve its objectives. If anything, it has left West Africa worse off than in the pre-9/11 era. The Sahel moved from being a marginal theatre of global terrorism before the War on Terror to become the epicentre of terrorism two decades after 9/11. Four of the five most terrorism-affected states in the world – Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Mali – are in the region. From around 1 per cent of global terrorism deaths in the 2000s, the Sahel now accounts for 54 per cent of global terrorism deaths, according to the 2026 Global Terrorism Index.
The region continues to experience increased proliferation and transformation of transnational terrorist groups, especially after ISIS found sanctuary in the ungoverned spaces in the area following its expulsion from the Middle East. According to the 2026 Global Terrorism Index, four of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups now operate in the Sahel, including Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, Islamic State of the Sahel Province (formerly known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara), Islamic State of the West Africa Province, and Boko Haram.
The human consequences of the Sahel’s post-9/11 security crisis extend beyond terrorism fatalities. It has contributed significantly to one of Africa’s gravest humanitarian emergencies, marked by mass displacement, severe food insecurity, disrupted education, and deteriorating health services. According to UNICEF, 8.2 million children in the region are in desperate need of assistance, while 2 million of the 3.6 million internally displaced people are children. It was estimated that about 3.7 million people inMali and Niger alone faced acute food insecurity in 2025.
West Africa has become more exposed to military coups, as military juntas exploit the poor security situation to claim civilian regimes are ineffective and justify coups, eroding gains of the democratic transition of the 1990s. Between 2020 and 2023, the region saw nine coups, six of which successfully overthrew civilian governments. Today, four states, including Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger, are ruled by military juntas, and three of them have formed the Alliance of the Sahelian States to exit ECOWAS, further complicating insecurity in the West African region.
West Africa has been one of the greatest casualties of the US War on Terror launched in the aftermath of 9/11. The subsequent securitisation of the region, without addressing the socio-economic and political roots of the conflict, has left West Africa in ruins at a time when rees are dwindling worldwide
About the author
Hakeem Onapajo
Hakeem Onapajo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Legislative Center for Security Analysis, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, Abuja, and a Researcher at the African Center for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
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