Who are the jihadists waging a ghost war in the Sahel?

The scene is wearily familiar. It is dusk at a ramshackle military outpost, surrounded by miles of scrubby desert or on the outskirts of a major town.

- By Jason Burke

Suddenly, there is automatic rifle fire, and hundreds of men arrive on motorbikes, then explosions, screams, fire, smoke. The defenders flee or are killed. The attackers shout triumphant cries of “God is greatest”.

A few days later in an edited video of the successful attack, Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, claimed responsibility. The Islamist extremist group controls a swathe of the Sahel, a region that stretches across Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and marks the borderlands between the Sahara and less arid zones.

The series of bombings, hijackings, attacks on military bases and raids into major towns in Mali and Burkina Faso carried out by JNIM in recent weeks have gone largely unnoticed, but represent one of the most significant military efforts by any Islamic militant organisation since the Taliban stormed back to power in Afghanistan in 2021.