By Evarist Chahali

Between 1 August and 13 September 2026, armed groups across Africa shifted decisively toward economic warfare and geographic dispersal rather than conventional territorial combat.

In Mali, the Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM)’s six-month fuel blockade cut off the overland routes that carry nearly 95 per cent of the country’s petroleum, leaving Bamako dependent on armed convoy escorts in what is now the most consequential campaign against a Sahelian state in the past year.

In Burkina Faso, the rivalry between JNIM and Islamic State Sahel Province intensified into open intra-jihadist conflict.

In Nigeria’s northeast, an undisclosed three-month ceasefire between the government and the Bakura Doro faction of Boko Haram (JAS) produced a measurable but fragile de-escalation.

It excludes Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which kept fighting both JAS and the state in Sambisa Forest, making the arrangement structurally unsound.

In the Horn of Africa, al-Shabaab escalated its Kenyan front into what appears to be a deliberate second theatre, coordinating claimed attacks on Kenya Defense Forces’ bases across four counties in a single week, while Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) reported Houthi-supplied weapons and UAVs point to a potential qualitative capability shift.

In the Great Lakes, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group in Central Africa, operating under the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) extended its footprint beyond the Beni–Ituri corridor into Tshopo province, marking its widest operating range to date.

In Mozambique, ISIS-Mozambique executed a three-day raid on the Marangira hunting camp in Niassa province, killing at least one person, abducting up to 20 and displacing some 2,700, in a mobility demonstration that exposed the limits of the Rwandan perimeter strategy near the Tanzanian border.

Across all theatres, the common threads are clear: armed groups are prioritising revenue extraction and economic disruption over defended positions, dispersing outward under military pressure, and fragmenting internally in ways that redistribute rather than reduce violence.

JNIM’s economic siege

Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin’s fuel blockade, first declared on 3 September 2025, targets the overland routes carrying 95 per cent of Mali’s petroleum imports from Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

The campaign has destroyed more than 300 fuel tankers since it began.

The blockade eased in early 2026 amid negotiations and increased military activity, but JNIM reimposed a full blockade on Bamako on 28 April, and by mid-2026-armed convoys remained the only means of supplying the capital with petroleum.

The original September 2025 declaration, delivered by spokesman Abou Houzeifa al-Bambari in Bambara and Fulfulde, imposed a full blockade on Kayes and Nioro du Sahel, banned fuel imports from four neighbouring countries, and threatened Diarra Transport, one of Mali’s largest private logistics companies.

Diarra Transport halted operations shortly after.

By the time of this reporting period, the blockade had been enforced continuously since its April reimposition, with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies assessing that the attacks represent an explicit economic strategy to isolate Bamako.

Separately, on 9 August, JNIM militants attacked an army garrison in San, in the Ségou region, killing 10 soldiers; 40 militants were also reported killed.

The San attack, deep in southern Mali, reinforces the pattern of JNIM projecting force well beyond its traditional northern and central operating areas.

Kayes is strategic for reasons beyond transit.

The region is the second-largest contributor to Mali’s GDP after Bamako and produces roughly 80 per cent of the country’s industrial gold.

Nioro du Sahel functions as the primary crossroads between Mali and Mauritania and holds deep religious significance as the birthplace of a branch of the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood.

Northern Mali

Fighting around Kidal continued at a lower tempo than July’s Anefis battle.

The raw Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) data captured persistent JNIM and IS-Sahel activity in Kidal, Bamako and Mopti throughout August, and a smaller cluster in Tillabéri, Niger.

Verified reporting on specific engagements remains thin for this period, but the pattern of the raw data, with near-daily entries in Bamako and Kidal, is consistent with JNIM’s demonstrated ability to sustain simultaneous pressure across multiple regions.

Assessment

The fuel blockade is JNIM’s most consequential campaign of the past year. It has achieved what conventional military operations did not: material constraint on the Malian state’s ability to function.

As of July 2026, armed convoys were the only means of supplying Bamako with petroleum, and even escorted convoys have been attacked on the approaches to the capital.

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies assesses that the attacks represent an explicit economic strategy to isolate Bamako.

Two features distinguish this from the northern insurgency.

First, it is directed at the civilian economy rather than military positions.

Second, JNIM is issuing public demands in local languages through social media channels, behaving less like a clandestine armed group and more like a rival governing authority enforcing its writ.

Burkina Faso: Intra-Jihadist War Reaches New Lethality

ACLED flagged on 17 September what may be the deadliest battle on record between JNIM and the Islamic State Sahel Province in a remote region of Burkina Faso.

Details remain scarce because the location is inaccessible to independent reporting, but ACLED’s Heni Nsaibia indicated that emerging information points to casualties exceeding any previous JNIM–ISSP engagement.

This follows the pattern observed throughout 2025 and 2026 in which the two groups compete for territorial control, mining revenue and recruitment. The competition is no longer marginal.

In parts of Burkina Faso, the violence between JNIM and ISSP now rivals or exceeds the violence each directs at the state.

Lake Chad Basin: A Ceasefire, a Clash, and an Ambush

The secret ceasefire

The New Humanitarian revealed on 7 September that Nigeria’s government has maintained a secret ceasefire with the Bakura Doro faction of Boko Haram (JAS) for approximately three months.

The agreement, brokered through the Office of the National Security Advisor and the Department of State Services, is linked to negotiations that secured the release in June of 360 civilians abducted from Ngoshe village in March.

Sources described the ceasefire as having produced a measurable reduction in JAS-attributed attacks across parts of Borno State. However, two sources warned that JAS may be using the pause to move equipment into the Mandara mountains.

The Sambisa clashes

The ceasefire’s structural weakness was demonstrated immediately.

In early September, Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters clashed in the Chingolo axis of Sambisa Forest in Bama Local Government Area, with at least 23 militants killed in sustained exchanges of fire.

Borno-based security analyst Zagazola Makama verified video footage of the engagements.

The same week, Boko Haram militants ambushed the convoy of APC governorship candidate Mustapha Gubio on the Gubio–Kareto–Damasak highway, an attack repelled by a combined security force.

Assessment

A ceasefire that excludes the stronger of two rival factions is not a ceasefire.

It is a bilateral arrangement that frees one party to concentrate against the other.

JAS gains a breathing space from Nigerian military pressure; ISWAP gets no such reprieve and continues to fight both the state and JAS.

The net effect is that Sambisa Forest becomes a more contested space, not a less violent one, while the state loses the ability to pressure JAS without jeopardising the agreement.

Previous attempts at dialogue, including a 2022–2023 hudna, collapsed after spoilers within the government and military disrupted the process.

The current arrangement is likely to follow the same trajectory unless it is formalised and extended to ISWAP, which the group’s ideology makes improbable.

Horn of Africa: Al-Shabaab’s Kenyan Campaign Intensifies

The cross-border surge

ACLED recorded at least 25 political violence events involving al-Shabaab across Mandera, Garissa, Wajir and Lamu counties in June and July alone. The tempo continued into August.

Al-Shabaab claimed attacks on KDF bases in Yunbis (Garissa), Sheikh Barrow and Fino (Mandera), Konton (Wajir), and Mangai (Lamu) between 21 and 25 August.

Several of these claims have not been independently verified. However, the ISS Africa assessment is unambiguous: over 30 security force officers were killed by IEDs in more than 10 attacks across Garissa and Lamu counties in three weeks spanning June and early July.

The August claims, even discounting those that remain unverified, represent a continuation of this campaign at elevated tempo.

Somalia

A strategic threat assessment for August 2026 described substantial intensification of al-Shabaab activity across southern and central Somalia.

ACLED separately noted that reports suggest al-Shabaab received weapons and UAVs from the Houthis in early 2026, enabling more sophisticated planning of IED attacks and ground operations.

The group is integrating conventional weapons with drones for reconnaissance and strike purposes.

Assessment

The Kenyan front is no longer incidental.

ACLED attributes the surge partly to events across the border in Jubaland, where al-Shabaab uses remote strongholds in Lower Juba as staging areas.

The pattern of simultaneous claims against multiple Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) bases across four counties in a single week is consistent with a deliberate campaign to stretch Kenyan security forces, not opportunistic raiding.

The Houthi weapons pipeline, if confirmed at the scale reported, would represent a qualitative shift in the group’s capability.

Great Lakes: ADF/ISCAP’s Widest Footprint

ADF/ISCAP activity during this period extended beyond its traditional Beni–Ituri corridor.

Africa Defense Forum reported that fighters attacked twelve villages in the Bambodi sector of Tshopo province, with a provincial parliamentarian stating the group feels “at home” in the area.

African Security Analysis, cited by Africa Defense Forum, assessed that ISCAP is no longer content to operate within its traditional zones in North Kivu, Ituri and their forest corridors.

The raw Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) data for this period registered ADF activity in Walikale (Nord-Kivu), Kampala (Uganda) and Kinshasa — the latter two almost certainly geocoding artefacts rather than actual operations.

However, the Walikale entries are consistent with verified reporting on ADF pressure along the Masisi–Walikale border.

Assessment

ISCAP’s geographic dispersal is a consequence of the joint DR Congo–Uganda Operation Shujaa, which drove the group out of its North Kivu strongholds but did not destroy it.

The group has fragmented into mobile cells that probe outward into less-policed provinces.

Tshopo and Haut-Uélé are now within ISCAP’s operating range, which is the widest it has held.

The dispersal makes the group harder to fix through conventional military operations and increases the likelihood of surprise attacks on civilian communities in areas that have not experienced jihadist violence before.

Mozambique: The Niassa Raid

The Marangira attack

On 3 September, approximately 30 ISM fighters attacked a hunting camp near Nanlixa village in Marrupa district, Niassa province, operated by Mozambique Wild Adventures.

The group killed at least one person, injured a member of the defence forces, abducted up to 20 workers including a 30-year-old South African mechanic, and burned the camp.

Attackers also damaged a health centre, a police post, homes and telecommunications infrastructure. Three American citizens were evacuated. Approximately 2,700 people were displaced.

ACLED’s Peter Bofin assessed the raid as an isolated operation rather than sustained territorial expansion, but noted it demonstrated ISM’s continued advantage in rural maneuverability.

Broader context

The ACLED Mozambique Conflict Monitor for August documented ISM’s southward movement through Quissanga, Mecufi, Meluco, Ancuabe and Chiúre districts following state pressure at Catupa in Macomia.

President Daniel Chapo announced the relocation of the Northern Operational Theatre command from Pemba to Mocímboa da Praia to improve coordination with the Rwandan Defence Force.

The US State Department updated its Mozambique travel advisory in August 2026, designating the Niassa Special Reserve as Level 4: Do Not Travel.

Assessment

The Marangira raid sits in the same pattern as the ADF’s Mambasa mining-village killings in July and JNIM’s tanker attacks on RN1.

All three represent armed groups targeting economic assets in under-policed rural areas rather than contesting defended military positions.

The hunting camp offered vehicles, supplies and a high-profile hostage, and its destruction undermines confidence in state control of the province.

Niassa borders Tanzania’s Ruvuma region. Marrupa district lies within several hundred kilometres of the Tanzanian border. ISM’s demonstrated ability to transit from Montepuez to Marrupa in three days means the group can reach the border zone in a comparable timeframe.

No verified activity has been recorded inside Tanzania during this period, but the trajectory warrants sustained monitoring.

Cross-Theatre Pattern: The Revenue War

Three operational patterns recur across every African theatre in this reporting period.

First, economic targeting. JNIM’s fuel blockade, ISM’s hunting-camp raid, the ADF’s mining-village taxation, and al-Shabaab’s use of Lower Juba as a staging area for cross-border operations all prioritise revenue extraction or economic disruption over conventional military objectives.

The armed groups are not primarily fighting for territory. They are fighting for money and for the ability to deny it to the state.

Second, geographic dispersal under pressure.

ISCAP has spread into Tshopo. ISM has moved from Catupa into Niassa.

JNIM’s blockade has extended from Kayes to routes connecting Bamako to Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. In each case, military pressure in one area produced operational activity in another, usually less-policed, area.

Third, fragmentation of the adversary.

The Boko Haram ceasefire excludes ISWAP. The JNIM–ISSP battle in Burkina Faso sets al-Qaeda and IS affiliates against each other. Al-Shabaab’s internal dispute risks factional splitting. None of these fractures reduces total violence; they redistribute it.

Source hierarchy: ACLED, OCHA, institutional analysis (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, ISS Africa, Crisis Group, Soufan Center, CFR Global Conflict Tracker); specialist outlets (Janes, Zitamar, The New Humanitarian, Caleb Weiss); wire services (AFP, AP, Reuters); quality broadsheets.