POLITICS TODAY

By Nasir Dambatta

From the Atlantic coast to the Horn of Africa, the continent’s war with violent extremism is in full, frightening bloom. In 2025 alone, over half of all global terror deaths have occurred in Africa — with the Sahel and its surrounding states now the deadliest belt on earth. What began years ago as scattered insurgencies has hardened into a continental contagion.

My independent investigation reveals the chilling portrait of 15 African nations currently battling terrorism or armed insurgency in 2025, showing how the fire has spread, flared and, in some cases, mutated. Let us take the besieged countries one by one:

The first country on the list is Mali. Once the cultural heartbeat of West Africa, Mali has become a grinding battlefield. In 2025, al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) tightened its stranglehold, attacking fuel convoys and laying siege to routes feeding the capital, Bamako. The militants’ new tactic isn’t just about killing — it’s about starving governance to death. Fuel blockades, burnt convoys, and captured outposts have made Mali the epicentre of Africa’s terror storm.

The second country on the list is Burkina Faso. Here, death has become routine. No other African state recorded more jihadist attacks in 2025. IEDs, ambushes and mass village raids have emptied rural communities and forced millions to flee. The army, accused of brutal reprisals, has struggled to distinguish combatants from civilians. Entire regions are now effectively beyond state control — a grim reminder that the Sahel’s heart is bleeding.

The third country is Niger Republic. Niger’s proximity to Mali and Burkina Faso makes it a vital yet vulnerable link. Attacks in 2025 crept alarmingly close to Niamey’s outskirts, testing the junta’s capacity to protect its own capital. Security analysts counted nearly a thousand terrorism-related deaths last year — a 94% rise — as Islamic State-linked fighters exploited every border crack. The country’s once-stable image is surprisingly slipping fast.

The fourth country is Nigeria. Africa’s most populous nation remains a war on multiple fronts. Boko Haram and its ISWAP offshoot continue to haunt the northeast, while new extremist cells — some aligned with JNIM — stir violence in the northwest and Middle Belt. Hundreds have died in 2025 from raids, kidnappings and ambushes. Despite military offensives, the hydra-headed insurgency keeps regenerating in ungoverned spaces. But a measure of success has been recorded by Nigeria’s armed forces’ offensive on both air and ground operations, though a lot more still needs to be done. There are new newspaper reports showing that application of Non-kinetic approach to banditry is working in the Northwest State of Kaduna. And the battle for supremacy between Boko Haram and its ISWAP rival is decimating the number of fighters on both sides.

The fifth nation is Somalia. The continent’s longest-running Islamist insurgency, Al-Shabab, is still alive, adaptive and lethal. Through 2025, the group unleashed suicide bombings, assassinations and complex assaults, even as government forces — backed by African Union troops — struggled to reclaim territory. Each attack reinforces a grim truth: Somalia remains the ideological engine room of jihadist warfare in East Africa.

The sixth country is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Far from the Sahel, the DRC’s eastern region has endured bloodletting of terrifying scale. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — now formally linked to ISIS — carried out massacres, kidnappings and raids that left hundreds dead this year. The jungle terrain offers perfect cover; the suffering, largely invisible, underscores Africa’s neglected war zone.

The seventh is Mozambique. In 2025, Cabo Delgado province again erupted. ISIS-linked insurgents torched villages, ambushed troops and forced tens of thousands to flee. Natural gas projects worth billions remain frozen as violence drives investors away. The once-hopeful region has become a theatre of despair — a haunting proof that terrorism kills not only people, but prosperity.

The eighth country is Ethiopia. Africa’s second-most populous nation faces a different but equally destabilising conflict. Clashes between Tigray and Afar forces in 2025 displaced civilians and created ungoverned zones where armed actors — including extremist proxies — thrive. Though not branded a jihadist war, Ethiopia’s renewed violence adds to the continent’s combustible mix of militancy and humanitarian collapse.

The ninth country is Cameroon. In the Far North, Boko Haram remains alive and vicious. Cross-border raids from Nigeria, kidnappings of villagers, and attacks on outposts define the 2025 security landscape. The Cameroonian state now fights two wars — one against separatists in the Anglophone west, and another against jihadists in the north. The strain is palpable.

The tenth country is Chad. Long seen as a stabiliser, Chad has become a frontline state itself. Militant incursions from Libya, Sudan and the Lake Chad Basin have stretched its overstretched army thin. The death of President Idriss Déby in battle years ago still haunts the national psyche, and the 2025 security reports show a fragile regime juggling rebellion and jihadism at once.

The eleventh country is Benin. Northern Benin, once peaceful, is now a doorway for jihadists moving south. Attacks on military posts and ambushes in Atacora and Alibori regions have made 2025 a year of awakening for Benin — a wake-up call that the Sahel’s violence has crossed the border. The government has since scrambled to militarise its northern frontier.

The twelfth nation is Togo. Like its neighbour Benin, Togo’s northern communities faced deadly incursions this year. Several soldiers were killed in ambushes linked to JNIM affiliates. What began as isolated skirmishes is morphing into a sustained insurgency, pushing the small coastal nation into the orbit of Sahel’s terror belt.

The thirteenth country is Ghana. Ghana has, so far, been spared a major attack — but the threat is real and rising. 2025 intelligence briefings warned of jihadist logistics routes developing in its northern borderlands. Accra has increased troop deployments, aware that a single breach could unravel decades of stability. Ghana stands on the knife-edge of a spreading war.

The fourteenth country is Kenya. The country’s northern counties continue to absorb Al-Shabab’s vengeance. 2025 saw renewed cross-border raids, targeted killings of police, and bombings aimed at deterring Nairobi’s anti-terror operations. The country’s long, porous border with Somalia remains a conduit of fear, testing East Africa’s counter-terror architecture.

The fifteenth and final country is Uganda. This country too, has felt the tremors of East Africa’s jihadist nexus. The ADF — originally a Ugandan rebel group — launched fresh cross-border attacks in 2025, killing civilians and soldiers alike. Kampala’s retaliatory strikes in the eastern DRC show the interconnectedness of African insurgencies: one war bleeding seamlessly into another.

THE PATTERN BENEATH THE CHAOS

What these 15 cases reveal is not 15 separate wars — but one continental crisis with multiple epicentres. The Sahel burns in the west, the Horn trembles in the east, and Central and Southern Africa smoulder in silence. Arms, fighters and extremist propaganda now move freely across frontiers that colonial borders once pretended were solid.

Terrorism in Africa has mutated. It’s no longer about holding ground; it’s about hollowing out states — destroying livelihoods, starving populations, and forcing governments into perpetual crisis mode. Attacks on fuel convoys in Mali, on garrisons in Benin, on convoys in Somalia or DRC — all point to the same strategy: erode legitimacy by proving the state cannot protect or provide.

THE ROAD AHEAD

The continent’s future depends on whether leaders see these fires as linked, not isolated. Joint intelligence, regional strike forces, and community-driven deradicalisation efforts are urgent imperatives. Unless borders become barriers, and governance becomes genuine, the map of African terror will keep expanding southward.

For now, fifteen nations stand bloodied but unbowed — proof that Africa’s greatest test in 2025 is not poverty or politics, but survival against the shadow armies waging a war without borders.

Dambatta a veteran journalist, wrote from Nock Road, New NDC, Kaduna State, Nigeria