The rise of Islamic extremism across the world

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Islamic extremists and their organisations have now turned their attention towards the parts of Africa where there are large Muslim populations but weak governments. The Islamists are now working through a new set of organisations. Asia is no longer their focus. After several years spent building its strength, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is now the strongest military force in West Africa and among the most powerful in the world. It has overtaken al-Qaeda.

The JNIM was founded in Mali in 2017 as an umbrella organisation assembling four extremist groups. It is headed by Iyad Ag Gali and Ahmad Koufa, leaders of the 2012 uprising that came to be known as the "Arab Spring". Their organisation took over much of Mali's north. JNIM is "creating a state that stretches like a belt from western Mali all the way to the borderlands of Benin. It is substantial — even exponential expansion," said Heni Nsaibia, senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location & Event or Data or ACLED, a non-profit research organisation that keeps of track of the militant organisations.

Ag Gali belongs to the mostly Muslim Tuareg which has fought for decades to establish an independent Muslim state in northern Mali. Koufa is a Fulani preacher based in northern Mali. The differences between the two men have caused considerable uncertainty about the way Mali is likely to evolve.

According to ACLED, in most African countries the security situation has deteriorated. In 2024, Burkina Faso ranked as the nation most affected by terrorist violence for a second straight year, and Niger saw the largest increase in terrorism-related deaths in the world. Increasingly, experts see JNIM's informant and supply chains stretching into stable nations such as Ghana, Senegal and Guinea.

Several people who spoke to the journalists who were gathering material for an analysis for The Washington Post recounted how gun-toting JNIM members burst into mosques in Burkina Faso in recent years, announcing that strict Islamic laws would be implemented, schools would be closed and state institutions would be targeted. Violating the rules would carry a heavy price, probably public execution.

According to ACLED, nearly 6,000 civilians have been killed, mostly for not following the rules being imposed by JNIM. There are real-time contacts between the Islamic groups operating in various parts of the world. The JNIM programme echoes the one being followed by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Somalia, a highly disturbed county in the horn of Africa, has also suffered because of the changing global approach by the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Because of the pullout of America from the area, al-Shabab, one of the affiliates of al-Qaeda, has taken control of important towns from Somali forces since the beginning of 2025.

The new administration in Washington does not believe that this group poses a direct threat to the US forces. But according to Matt Bryden, founder of Sahan, a Nairobi-based think-tank, the gaining strength of al-Shabab "would have far-reaching implications for US policy in Africa and much of the Middle East".

The sudden breakup of the Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, in 1991, was the result of the defeat of its troops to save from collapse the Communist regime Moscow had installed in Kabul. Moscow was defeated be seven Islamic groups that called themselves the mujahideen who were able to march from the Pak-Afghan border to Kabul.

They did this with the help of the security services of Pakistan. Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Geneva agreement, with Pakistan included as one of the signatories, which assured a peaceful exit of the Soviet troops in 1989. The countries along the periphery of the collapsed Soviet Union gained independence. Among those that became independent states were the Muslim states of Central Asia.

There were attempts by some elements in these countries to bring Islam into the pattern of governance. These developments were analysed by Barnett R Rubin, noted American authority on the Middle East, who has studied the threat of radical Islam to stability in the Middle East and Central Asia. In a presentation organised by the Asia Society's Asian Social Issues, he focused on local developments in the republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and how they might affect the spread of radical Islam in the area.

According to Rubin, the JNIM leadership is watching the developments in Syria. Corrine Dufka, another Middle East watcher, based in Washington, believes there is a model for mainstreaming the trajectory of Islamic movements. Some of JNIM senior leaders are looking at Ahmed al-Sharra — Syrian leader who has recast himself as a moderate after once being closely associated with al-Qaeda. He was embraced by the Americans when, during the recent visit to the Middle East, President Trump found him to be an attractive person to lead Syria.

The way the United States left Afghanistan after having been present in that country for 20 years has followed the same approach in West Africa and the Middle East. According to the Defense Department in Washington, there are now fewer than 200 United States troops in the area — down from 1,400 as recently as 2023. "JNIM is now ascendant, but would likely collapse into many parts," one former senior official said to me in a conversation, aware that I was writing on the development of Islamic radicalism around the world. "In a region where we used to monitor and influence developments, we no longer have the tools that follow those policies."

According to the official I spoke to, "we are concerned about President Hassan Sheikh Mohammad's prioritization of internal politics and leaving the ground to al-Shabab, the most lethal associate of the once-powerful Al-Qaeda which has pushed the government forces out of several towns in the country's west."

Somalia's fractious government which operates from Mogadishu, the country's capital, was propped up by the United States aided by an extensive African Union peace-keeping operation. The AU also had the help of the United States, receiving both training and equipment from Washington.

With the Americans no longer closely involved, there is opportunity to act on the part of other regional powers. The obvious candidates are Iran, Turkey and possibly Pakistan. If Pakistan were to be involved, it would do so with the backing of China. This is a subject on which I will write later.