The heavy price paid by Benin with the attack that killed at least 28 soldiers last Wednesday, in the north of the country, on the border with Niger and Burkina Faso, is not a trivial event. It is worthy of the lateral way in which jihadist terrorism progresses from local to coastal as indicated by the forecasts and predictions of all research institutes working on the Sahel.
For years, with an increasingly significant scale in continental countries, jihadism has wanted to take on new colors in the territories of establishment, action and projection. This is how the repetitive assaults against countries like Burkina Faso, which no longer controls many parts of its territory, are to be put into this plan of jihadist groups to target the sea, that is to say the Gulf from Guinea.
Benin, having seen its border countries suffer the horrors of jihadism, wanted to prepare itself so as not to experience the same security and humanitarian scars. The State has therefore made enormous efforts and put a lot of resources into reorganizing its security apparatus in the face of these new threats all along its borders with Niger and Burkina. The strength of the Beninese Armed Forces has thus increased significantly, from 7,500 men in 2022 to 12,300 in 2024.
In the same time space, its defense budget increased from 60 billion to 90 billion CFA francs. It was even planned to increase this amount in coming years. Benin’s success is above all having been able to adapt its security apparatus to the new situation by launching Operation “Mirador” in 2021, supposed to be an operational device which best responds to the jihadist threat by giving meaning to securing border areas. But this did not give this country the chance to protect itself from jihadist incursions which caused the death of 121 Beninese soldiers between 2021 and December 2024.
The example of Benin speaks volumes: the reorganization of the Defense and Security Forces with a view to confronting asymmetric threats is not the only solution to confronting jihadism. As for countries plagued by this issue, it is the same path that has been taken by armed terrorist groups (Gta). Identity demands served as a cradle and incubators allowing these GTAs to have marginalized populations as recruits. The other fertile ground for the jihadist surge that Benin is facing is above all the diplomatic dissensions between the border countries, Niger and Burkina Faso, against a backdrop of quarrels between ECOWAS and the Aes.
This prevents any inter or intra security cooperation with these countries, especially since the threat is now transnational, and is no longer localized in the same space. Internally, it will be necessary to no longer minimize community demands which, with climate change, can metastasize and become security problems with enormous humanitarian consequences. Cooperation mechanisms must also be resurrected even though diplomatic tensions have put them to sleep. It is only under these conditions that the lateral movement that jihadism makes from the local to the coast can be stopped.
Related News :