ACLED says Sahel jihadist groups are exploiting mines

Conflict monitor ACLED said jihadist groups behind deadly violence in the Sahel are increasingly exploiting mines to finance their activities and expand their influence.

Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali are rich in mineral resources and have faced violence for more than a decade from groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The violence has killed thousands of people across the three countries.

ACLED said militant groups are increasingly exploiting mining economies to fund their activities and wage economic warfare against the states they are fighting. It said the groups also use mining areas to strengthen territorial influence, control road networks and assert authority over communities that rely on mining for their livelihoods.

The non-profit analysed more than 1,000 violent incidents recorded between January 1, 2015 and June 19, 2026 around industrial mines, large artisanal gold mining sites and other areas considered strategic for extractive activity in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

ACLED said JNIM, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, was involved in 42 percent of all recorded mining-adjacent conflict events during that period. It said the Islamic State group accounted for 27 percent of incidents.

Violence around mining areas made up five percent of all attacks recorded since 2015 in the three countries, ACLED said. Of the mining-related violence recorded in the central Sahel, 75 percent took place in Burkina Faso, 15 percent in Mali and 10 percent in Niger.

Heni Nsaibia, the ACLED researcher who wrote the report, said the distribution has shifted since 2024 and reflects the growing spread of conflicts linked to mining across the central Sahel, with implications for neighbouring coastal West African regions.

ACLED said gold is central to the violence. Thirty-nine of the 44 mining sites studied produced gold, and gold-bearing areas accounted for 90 percent of the recorded violence.

The report identified several mining basins as major insecurity hotspots, including the Solhan, Essakane, Boungou and Inata mines in Burkina Faso, the Samira mine in western Niger, and Tassiga and Tinzaouatene in northern Mali.