Armed groups are being formed in places like Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, where state militaries cannot defeat jihadists and separatists alone. Once formed, however, they seldom stay loyal.
AFP
Armed men from the MSA, an armed political movement in Mali's Azawad region, gather in the desert outside Menaka on March 14, 2020.
Security in the Sahel remains highly volatile, with heavy clashes involving jihadists, separatists, and government forces in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Towns and military bases are being attacked, with rising civilian casualties. In the past four years, each of the three states has experienced a military coup d’état. These three governments, which form the Sahel Alliance, are reaching for Plan B.
They have been increasing their military expenditure in the battle against armed non-state actors, with Russian and Turkish technical specialists and military instructors, and units of Russia’s Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group) conducting joint operations with Mali’s army. More soldiers have also been recruited and trained, yet national armies have limited resources, so pro-government paramilitary groups—irregular armed formations loyal to Sahel Alliance governments—are beginning to have a bigger role in the fight against jihadists.
Farmers and volunteers
In Niger, where Presidential Guard commander Abdourahamane Tchiani led a coup in 2023, the army has been fighting jihadists, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), for a decade. In August, the army claimed success with the killing of a Boko Haram leader in the Lake Chad region, but it needs new recruits, with extremists often exploiting local militias for their own purposes.
On 19 August, Niger’s military leaders launched a mobilisation programme of civilian militias known as Garkouwar Kassa (Shield of the Fatherland) to form volunteer units in support of the army. Under the plan, volunteers will be trained in Niamey before being deployed to conflict zones alongside national security forces. This poses a risk to the government, but one that has been imposed upon it due to a shortage of resources. The model is Burkina Faso’s Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland (VDP) recruitment programme.
The VDP is a state paramilitary structure created in 2020 by decree of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré to support the armed forces and law enforcement in the fight against jihadists. Kaboré was overthrown by a group of army officers (led by Ibrahim Traoré) in 2022, but the VDP programme continued, spurred initially by the spontaneous creation of self-defence groups across the country.
National armies have limited resources, so pro-government paramilitary groups in the Sahel are playing a bigger role in the fight against jihadists
Hunting fraternities
At their core were the dozo or donso—traditional closed hunting fraternities common in sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, these groups were formed to combat poachers and criminal gangs such as "road blockers". The marginal status of these brotherhoods made them a frequent feature of armed conflicts on the continent. The dozo took part in the wars in Côte d'Ivoire from 2002-11 and in the Central African Republic from 2012-19.
In Burkina Faso, these groups became known as Koglweogo (Guardians of the Forest). Their growth prompted the government to create an umbrella structure into which they were integrated. As a result, the VDP was composed largely of members of the Mossi, the main ethnic group of farmers, who have long lived uneasily alongside the more nomadic Fulani, fighting over land use. Pro-government units comprised mainly of Mossi have been accused of abuses and even ethnic cleansing against the Fulani, from whom jihadists have drawn recruits.
The VDP differed from the army in terms of recruitment, formation, training, pay, provisions, equipment, transport, and weaponry. The rise to power of Ibrahim Traoré, who placed special emphasis on the VDP and even described it as "our Wagner," did not improve matters, but the Traoré government set out to mobilise an additional 50,000 volunteers, and it succeeded. By November 2022, the VDP had more than 90,000 fighters, compared to just 14,000 professional soldiers in the national army. On 30 August 2025, the government of Burkina Faso announced that a further 2,500 Dozo hunters were ready to join forces engaged in efforts to restore control over the country's territory.
Becoming local rulers
Partly owing to the lack of equipment, the VDP continues to bear heavy losses in the fight against jihadists, and its volunteers are being likened by some to cannon fodder. Some VDP units (known as 'communities') are mainly tasked with the maintenance of order in their historical regions. The lack of hierarchy means that the VDP functions more as a collection of discrete, partly independent garrisons spread across the country, remote from army units. This, combined with the army's lack of mobility, has forced local VDP detachments to rely solely on their own resources and entrench themselves in place. With the central government authority weak, VDP units effectively became the ruling power in their territories.
Some units have been accused of extortion of civilians, looting, land seizures, extrajudicial killings, ethnic cleansing, and even making deals with jihadists, as they increasingly exercise state-like functions, effectively becoming mini statelets. With hostility between the VDP and the army, VDP units carve out quasi-independent enclaves, with only nominal loyalty to Ouagadougou, the capital. This, in turn, triggers further jihadist attacks. The VDP units' search for collaborators among local populations then fuels social tensions.
In nearby Mali, a mosaic of militias includes Tuareg formations and Dozo self-defence units, with pro-government paramilitary groups there highly fragmented and diverse. A distinct category comprises Tuareg armed groups loyal to Bamako, the capital, notably the MSA and GATIA. These mono-ethnic formations are drawn from the Daoussahak and Imghad Tuareg communities, with approximately 3,000 and 1,000 fighters respectively (the idea of an independent 'Azawad' state was not supported by all Tuareg communities). The Imghad and Daoussahak are regarded as 'non-noble' Tuareg tribes and refused to submit to the 'noble' Ifoghas, who claimed the right to lead a new state.
Self-protection units
With the Malian state weakened, creating armed groups became the only means of self-protection. This prevented separatists from consolidating control in the north, but exacerbated the conflict. Both MSA and GATIA are engaged in serious clashes with Islamic State factions and maintain tense relations with Azawad separatists and JNIM, al-Qaeda's Sahel affiliate. These groups survive through loyalty to the state.
An anti-aircraft gun is mounted on the back of a pickup truck, as militants from the Azawad Salvation Movement (MSA), an armed political movement in Mali's Azawad region, gather in the desert outside Menaka on March 14, 2020.
While MSA and GATIA avoid spiralling violence in areas under their control, extrajudicial actions are widespread, and they largely control economic activity. Neither wants to relinquish autonomy over its territories, particularly in the absence of any systemic state support.
The most numerous pro-government forces in Mali are local self-defence groups, formed on the ground from traditional Dozo hunter communities. They vary in location and size, up to several hundred members, but share common characteristics: they are immobile and mono-ethnic, drawn mainly from farming communities. They get no systemic support from the state, and although they recognise the state's authority over the territories they control, they effectively function as the de facto authorities.
The most widely known paramilitary group in Mali is Dan Na Ambassagou (Those Who Rely on God). It is a self-defence force of the Dogon people, established in 2016 in the region informally known as 'Dogon Country.' Historically, Dogon farmers and Fulani nomadic herders have fought over scarce pasture and farmland. Feeling discriminated against, some Fulani joined jihadist factions promising them land, so the Dogon formed Dan Na Ambassagou in response. Based on traditional hunting fraternities, it is thought to have around 5,000 fighters, mainly armed with old hunting rifles or weapons captured from jihadists.
The Dogon people participate in a protest in Bamako, demanding security and peace in central Mali, on September 13, 2019.
Long-term risks
The reliance on paramilitary groups stems from the inability of national armies in the Sahel Alliance states to win the battle against jihadists and organised crime, or even to maintain full territorial control. While their deployment may bring short-term gains, it risks creating longer-term structural threats to regional stability, in part because the appearance of security afforded by these pro-government militias is illusory.
Dispersed across a vast range, these groups only pose a threat to small jihadist factions; they are powerless against the bigger, operational combat units. Moreover, the presence of state-loyal militias provokes terrorist attacks, and the broader trend of militarisation only complicates efforts to end conflicts. On the contrary, the widespread use of abuses by paramilitaries undermines interethnic and social bonds, sparking new rivalries and stoking old tensions.
Across the Sahel, state authority is disintegrating. Militias partially supplant the functions of official state institutions through the informal and often unlawful means at their disposal. Local populations can then find themselves trapped between the army, pro-government militias, and jihadists, especially when it comes to economic activity in areas controlled by pro-government paramilitary groups, creating serious obstacles to the development of a legal economy and the attraction of investment. Pro-government militias in the Sahel are therefore not strategic allies of the state but situational partners pursuing their own agendas.
Once armed, they become de facto authorities in their areas that are unlikely to relinquish power easily. Africa is littered with examples of paramilitaries that wanted more, not least with the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan and M23 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, both of which have seized vast swathes of territory. In both countries, short-term benefits came with long-term risks that now potentially threaten both state and society. States lose their requisite monopoly on violence because, at some point, the militias stop answering to either civilian or military authority. The Sahel Alliance states appear not to have heeded the lessons from elsewhere.
