JNIM in Nigeria - Background and Implications
The Sahelian jihadist group claimed its first attack in Nigeria.
Fighters from Jama‘at Nusrat al-Islam wa-l-Muslimin (the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims, JNIM) attacked Nuku, Nigeria, in the Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State (see MENASTREAM for a map). The location is about 120 kilometers east, by road, of the border between Nigeria and Benin.
JNIM was created in 2017 as an amalgamation of jihadist units that had previously been under the direct command of either al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or the various allies of Malian rebel-turned-jihadist Iyad ag Ghali. JNIM is formally nested under the remnants of AQIM, although since its creation (and even before) JNIM has considerably outshone its parent organization. JNIM has an operational presence throughout much of Mali and Burkina Faso, as well as some parts of Niger, and it has made considerable inroads in Benin and Togo as well (while meeting greater obstacles, so far, in Cote d’Ivoire).
Analysts have warned for some time of JNIM’s expansion towards Nigeria. In a 2024 report for Clingendael, Kars de Bruijne and Clara Gehrling argued that
a very problematic situation is emerging along the Nigerian-Benin border. Not only are there numerous indications of extremist activities and a link between bandits and extremists along the border but also there are clear social links that facilitate cross-border exchange and real livelihood needs that create vulnerabilities to recruitment.
And in a 2025 briefing for ACLED, Héni Nsaibia wrote:
Between 2023 and 2024, JNIM and ISSP [the Islamic State Sahel Province] have escalated their operations in the border regions between Benin, Niger, and Nigeria, significantly transforming these areas into a volatile frontline. This renewed southward expansion through sustained violent campaigns is driven by the persistent pursuit of new manpower and recruitment opportunities as these groups continue to grow and build their insurgent armies, as well as the need for access to resources through smuggling and illicit trade routes essential for their operations. Expansion into these remote and less secure areas further allows both groups to establish new operational bases and expand their logistical networks. This expansion has led to territorial contestation and has profoundly impacted the local communities, who find themselves increasingly caught in the crossfire of the ongoing conflict.
Nigerian analysts have also warned this year of a growing jihadist presence near the area where the October 28 JNIM attack occurred, a finding supported by reporting from Premium Times’ Yakubu Mohammed on the background to this attack.
The JNIM attack was not particularly bloody - one soldier was killed - but it is the JNIM name that draws attention. As the Africa Report’s Boubacar Haidara writes, JNIM’s official arrival means a new headache for the Nigerian military at a time when it is already fighting on multiple internal fronts, all while civil-military relations are a bit shaky.
Beyond Nigeria, one major concern is the possibility of a contiguous jihadist corridor emerging from Mali to Lake Chad - an “arc of instability,” to bring back a phrase that was widespread in the 2000s and 2010s when talking about Africa amid the early War on Terror. But I think it’s more complicated than that.
To me the right image is not the arc or the belt but the patchwork. More and more, the Sahel and Nigeria comprise pockets of government authority interspersed with pockets of control by different armed actors; the original “arc of instability” talk forecast that a kind of broad-based “terrorist arc” would emerge in the Sahel and beyond, which would in turn act as a “launch pad” for attacks on Western countries. I think what one confronts now is less a cohesive “terrorist arc” and more a terrain of competition and uncertainty, with overlapping spheres of influence and violence. One thing that makes life in the Sahel and West Africa so deadly and dangerous for many civilians is that who controls what, and where it’s safe to work and live and travel, can change dramatically from one moment to the next. And for locals, who often refer to armed groups by nicknames or generic names (see the Premium Times report for an example of this dynamic), the violence is often experienced not as the work of dreaded outsiders but as the work of local or at least regional men.
Meanwhile, JNIM’s arrival in Nigeria points both to jihadist expansion and to jihadist competition - and even, in some cases, weakness. Nigerian-born jihadist groups, namely Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and “Ansaru” (Ansar al-Muslimin fi Bilad al-Sudan, or the Defenders of Muslims in the Lands of the Blacks), have clashed and competed in various permutations for a decade and more. “Ansaru” is a particularly amorphous configuration, trumpeting an affiliation to al-Qaida and occasionally claiming attacks, but always ranking a distant third among the jihadist groups in the country. JNIM’s official entrance into Nigeria could be the prelude to a revitalization of Ansaru, but scans to me more as an admission of Ansaru’s weakness.
Even more broadly, in keeping with Nsaibia’s arguments quoted above, JNIM’s push into Nigeria seems more likely to elevate inter-jihadist tensions, rather than to pave the way for cohesion. Joint operations sometimes occur between jihadist groups, but on the whole they are fairly jealous of their territories, recruits, and resources. There is also a great deal of potential for friction between JNIM and local bandits; bandits have sometimes aligned themselves with jihadists in Nigeria and the Sahel, but have also often been wary of jihadists, both because of the target that jihadists can plant on their allies’ backs and because of, again, the competition for resources.
There is also the possibility that expansion will create or widen tensions within JNIM. Analysts who parse the propaganda closely have noted that the claim for the October 28 attack was not necessarily claimed by JNIM central. Colleagues of mine, in research that I do not think has been published yet, have argued that expansion is a double-edged sword for jihadists, offering opportunities but also risks, including the risk that the recruits on the frontlines may want to push faster and farther than the leadership is comfortable with. Is it possible that JNIM’s units in the Benin-Nigeria borderlands are getting ahead of whatever master planning is occurring among Iyad ag Ghali and the central leadership?
It’s bad news for the Nigerian authorities regardless. Rivalries among jihadists do not necessarily redound to governments’ advantage - just ask the authorities in Mali, Burkina Faso, or Niger. Yet Nigeria also provides a paradigmatic case of how there are many scenarios beyond victory versus collapse; there is also a kind of insidious, open-ended conflict, always shifting but never resolved in one direction or the other. JNIM enters into Nigeria as a potentially powerful presence, but also as one contestant among many angling for a slice of the country’s human and material wealth.