Created in 2014, the G5 Sahel security alliance is about to be dissolved after members pulled out.
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Foreign powers’ interest in the Sahel is driven by its natural resources and strategic location for security and illegal migration control.
Supporters of Niger’s pro-coup National Council for Safeguard of the Homeland celebrate.
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No US president has set foot on sub-Saharan Africa since 2015 – and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Niger is central to several economic and political initiatives in the Sahel.
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Economic infrastructure that affects several African countries runs through Niger.
A G5 Sahel meeting on Burkina Faso and Mali.
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The creation of the G5 Sahel added to the traffic of security groupings in the region
Demonstrators hold a picture of Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba who led the coup against Burkina Faso president Roch Kabore.
Photo by Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images
The latest coup now presents a fork in the road for West African, French, and American policymakers.
Mauritanian soldiers stand guard near the border with Mali in the fight against jihadists in Africa’s Sahel region.
Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images
Jihadi groups take advantage of endemic poverty, inequality, high unemployment levels, illiteracy, ethnic divisions, and poor governance to spread their campaign of violence in the Sahel region.
Mauritanian soldiers stand guard at a G5 Sahel task force command post, in November 2018 in the southeast of Mauritania near the border with Mali.
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The political will displayed by the Sahel member countries of the G5 Task Force appears to be out of step with the actual capabilities of their armies.