Terrorist attacks on Nigeria, Benin and Niger borders rose by 262% in 2025  —  Report

2026-02-26 - 15:36

Violent attacks linked to al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) surged sharply across the border areas of Nigeria, Benin and Niger in 2025, according to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). The report shows that when 2024 and 2025 figures were compared, fatalities linked to militant violence in the tri-border zone jumped by 262 per cent. It also found that parts of Benin and Niger, as well as Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Kwara states, accounted for an 86 per cent rise in recorded violent incidents. Speaking in the report released on Thursday, Héni Nsaibia, ACLED’s senior analyst for West Africa, said the threat posed by extremist groups in the area had evolved as militants expanded their reach. “The threats have taken on new dimensions as these groups continue to expand their footprint,” Nsaibia said. According to the assessment, both JNIM and ISSP have adopted more visible and strategic communication tactics, aimed at demonstrating their ability to maintain influence and compete for relevance in the borderlands. ACLED noted that between June and November 2025, JNIM publicly claimed several attacks in Basso, Wara, Nuku and Karunji along the Benin–Nigeria frontier. The report said these claims marked some of the group’s first acknowledged operations inside Nigeria and represented “a public declaration of presence in an area where activity had previously been suspected but remained less overt”. In a similar development, ISSP began formally claiming responsibility for attacks in Goubey and Birni N’Konni, located along the Niger–Nigeria border, in December and February. Before these claims, the report said violence in the area had largely been attributed to the Lakurawa armed group. ACLED linked the expanding militant activity to weak governance and fragile regional cooperation, noting that “limited state presence and weak border control persist after several Sahelian states withdrew from Economic Community of West African States, which led to weakened regional cooperation, bilateral tensions and limited cross-border coordination”. The report also highlighted the role of the United States in recent counter-terrorism operations. It recalled that in December, the US carried out precision strikes on two Islamic State enclaves in Sokoto State, with the approval of the Nigerian government. According to ACLED, Washington’s decision to target ISSP inside Nigeria, outside the group’s traditional strongholds in the central Sahel, reflected an attempt to halt its movement towards coastal West Africa while preserving US strategic presence in the region. “A more immediate trigger for the strikes may have been ISSP’s October kidnapping of US citizen, missionary and civilian pilot, Kevin Rideout, in Niger’s capital, Niamey,” the report stated. Beyond the abduction, ACLED said growing military cooperation between Nigeria and the United States provides a practical platform for confronting Sahel-based jihadist groups, especially as Western forces have been largely pushed out of countries at the centre of the region’s insurgency. Vanguard News