ABIDJAN: Diplomatic tensions between Benin and its junta-led Sahel neighbors Niger and Burkina Faso have led to a security vacuum which jihadists are exploiting with ever-deadlier attacks, analysts said.
North Benin, which borders both Niger and Burkina Faso, has seen a recent rise in strikes targeting army positions, with an attack last week claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists killing 54 soldiers, the deadliest toll given by officials so far.
Benin’s government has blamed those attacks on a spillover from Niger and Burkina Faso, both ruled by army officers who took power in coups on the promise of quashing the Sahel region’s long-running terror scourge.
But with Niger and Burkina Faso’s juntas accusing Benin of hosting army bases for Western powers hoping to destabilize them — accusations Benin denies — there is little collaboration between the two sides on tackling the issue.
“If Benin goes it alone and there is no response from the other side, it will remain in a state of crisis, with terrorist groups having found an El Dorado on its borders,” said Beninese political scientist Emmanuel Odilon Koukoubou at the Civic Academy for Africa’s Future, a think tank.
The Beninese government shares that view.
“Our situation would be much easier if we had decent cooperation with the countries which surround us,” government spokesman Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji said on Wednesday.
“If on the other side of the border there were (security) arrangements at the very least like ours, these attacks would not take place in this way or even happen at all,” he insisted.
Both Burkina Faso and Niger are located in the Sahel, a region of the world which saw half of 2024’s deaths from terrorist attacks, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index ublished in March.
For the second year running, Burkina Faso took the top spot in the GTI’s list of countries worst affected by terrorism.
Niger meanwhile ranked fifth, just behind fellow junta-led Sahel ally Mali.
“The growing presence of jihadists in the south of Burkina Faso and Niger along with the limited capacity of the armed forces of Sahel countries along their borders have allowed jihadist groups to create cells in territories like north Benin,” Control Risks analyst Beverly Ochieng said.
And the forested areas of Benin’s W and Pendjari national parks near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger “offer an additional layer of cover for jihadist activities,” Ochieng said.
“With only limited aerial surveillance, Islamists can move about within these zones without being detected,” she added.
The W national park was the scene of the April 17 attack, which Benin said resulted in the death of 54 soldiers, though the Al-Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, or JNIM, claimed to have killed 70.
The JNIM is “the most influential group” in north Benin, said Lassina Diarra, Director of the Strategic Research Institute at the International Academy against Terrorism in Jacqueville, Ivory Coast.
This was “because there is a sociological, ethnic and territorial continuity with southern Burkina Faso, which is beyond the control of that state,” Diarra added.
According to Control Risks’ Ochieng, “it is likely that the JNIM wats to use this area (of north Benin) to encircle Burkina Faso, thus reinforcing its influence and presence.”
On Thursday, a key regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS, again underlined “the imperious necessity of an indispensable and reinforced cooperation” to tackle the problem.
But in a West Africa that is more fractured than ever, that is easier said than done.
Besides turning their backs on the West, the junta-led trio of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali have all pulled out of ECOWAS, accusing the bloc of being a tool for what they see as former colonial ruler France’s neo-imperialist ambitions.
Banding together as the Alliance of Sahel States or AES, the three have created a unified army and conduct joint anti-jihadist operations.
Yet the trio has closed off cooperation on rooting out Islamist violence in countries they consider too pro-Western, Benin and Ivory Coast among them.
That said, the AES cooperates with Togo and, since December, Ghana, while Nigeria has mounted a diplomatic charm offensive to renew its security cooperation with Niger, suspended since the coup which brought the junta to power in July 2023.
For its part, Benin needs to back up military action with social support, by stepping up community-building to prevent the mass recruitment of Beninese people into jihadist groups, according to the analysts.
“However, this will remain difficult without cooperation from the Sahel, as this is where the root of the insurgency lies,” warned Ochieng.