The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is accelerating the deployment of a regional standby force, beginning with 1,650 personnel, to counter a rapidly expanding terrorist threat that now endangers the entire region.
The decision was announced at a United Nations Security Council briefing on Monday, where regional leaders warned that extremist violence is no longer confined to the Sahel and now constitutes a “growing global threat” .
ECOWAS Commission President, Dr. Omar Alieu Touray, revealed that early-warning data has recorded 450 terrorist attacks and more than 1,900 deaths in the region in 2025 alone . “Terrorism has spread beyond the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin to affect almost all of West Africa,” Dr. Touray told the Council. “The threat is now regional in scope, and our response must match that scale” .
A New Form of Economic Warfare
The briefing highlighted a shift in terrorist tactics towards “economic warfare,” with groups deliberately targeting fuel supply lines and obstructing critical trade routes . In Mali, for instance, the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) has imposed blockades on towns, banned fuel imports, and caused severe shortages and price hikes, aiming to destabilise economies and weaken states .
UN Secretary-General António Guterres underscored the severity of the situation, stating that the expanding networks and collapse of essential services are “not only a regional dramatic reality.” He warned that the “progressive links of its groups in Africa and beyond make it a growing global threat” . The Sahel now accounts for 19% of terrorist attacks worldwide and over half of global terrorism-related casualties .
The ECOWAS Security Response
Faced with this escalating crisis, ECOWAS is moving quickly to deploy its long-planned standby force. “To confront the escalating violence, ECOWAS is fast-tracking the deployment of its standby force, starting with 1,650 troops, with plans to scale up to 5,000 personnel,” Dr. Touray stated . The force is intended to be the West African contingent of the broader African Standby Force .
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, who currently chairs ECOWAS and presided over the Security Council session, proposed an ECOWAS-UN-African Union compact to ensure predictable financing and operations across the region . He cautioned that failure to act decisively could turn the Sahel into a “permanent haven for extremist cells” .
Regional Divisions and a Shifting Geopolitical Landscape
The regional counter-terrorism efforts face significant challenges, including internal divisions. The withdrawals of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from ECOWAS in January 2025 have strained regional relations and security coordination . Dr. Touray acknowledged that “fragmented efforts and mutual mistrust continue to hinder effective cooperation” .
This comes amid a major geopolitical shift, marked by the complete withdrawal of French military forces from West Africa over the past three years . The departure of Operation Barkhane, which failed to defeat the terrorist groups, has left a vacuum that new partners like Russia have sought to fill through paramilitary groups such as the Africa Corps .
A Call for Unified Action
Despite the focus on military deployment, leaders emphasised that a purely security-focused approach is insufficient. Secretary-General Guterres urged a “unified, coherent and consensus-based” response, stressing that “terrorists thrive where the social contract is broken” . He highlighted the need to fight poverty and invest in sustainable development to address the root causes of terrorism .
With humanitarian appeals for the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin severely underfunded receiving less than a quarter of the required $4.9 billion the international community is being called upon to bolster both its financial and cooperative support .
The accelerated deployment of ECOWAS forces marks a critical test for the region’s ability to organise a unified defence against an increasingly sophisticated and widespread insurgency.
