ECOWAS launches limited counter-terrorism force amid major sahel geopolitical fracture
Abuja, Nigeria/London-UK, November 26, 2025
REGIONAL SECURITY: ECOWAS Deploys Initial 1,650 Troops for Counter-Terrorism Mandate, Facing Severe Funding and Coordination Challenges Following the Withdrawal of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has officially begun the activation of its long-discussed Standby Force, not for the political intervention originally intended to reverse the region’s recent wave of coups, but for the far more urgent and existential mission of fighting extremism.
ECOWAS Launches Limited Counter-Terrorism Force Amid Major Sahel Geopolitical Fracture, signaling a pragmatic, yet constrained, response to the rapid escalation of jihadist violence threatening to engulf the entire sub-region.
This initial, limited deployment aims to create a security buffer, but its long-term viability is severely undermined by the recent withdrawal of the three most affected nations from the regional bloc.
The decision was galvanized by the alarming surge in violence: the ECOWAS early-warning system recorded over 450 terrorist attacks and nearly 2,000 deaths in 2025 alone.
This violence, once largely confined to the remote Sahelian border areas, is now permeating coastal states like Ghana, Togo, and Côte d’Ivoire.
In response to this crisis, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Alieu Omar Touray, announced that an initial contingent of 1,650 personnel from the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) will be deployed under an explicit counter-terrorism mandate, with plans to scale up to 5,000 troops as additional resources and commitments are secured from member states and international partners.
The Geopolitical Challenge: A Fractured Bloc
The operation faces a critical and perhaps insurmountable geopolitical challenge: the official withdrawal of the military-led states of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger (now united in the Alliance of Sahel States, or AES) from ECOWAS in January 2025.
These three countries are the epicentre of the terrorist violence that the ESF is mandated to fight. Their departure has not only stripped the bloc of three founding members but has also created a gaping hole in regional security architecture.
The security vacuum caused by this geopolitical fracture is immense. The AES countries, now seeking alternative alliances (most notably with Russia and the development of their own internal defense pact), are no longer formally committed to ECOWAS’s intelligence-sharing or joint operational protocols.
This lack of coordination with the governments controlling the actual battle zones makes the ESF’s mission inherently more difficult, restricting its ability to conduct cross-border operations and gather timely intelligence crucial for countering mobile jihadist groups.
The challenge for the ESF is now twofold: to stabilize the border regions of member states and to find a non-formal mechanism for cooperation with the hostile AES governments who control the heart of the crisis.
Funding and Operational Hurdles
Despite the gravity of the threat and the stated commitment from the regional leadership in Abuja, Nigeria, the deployment is hamstrung by severe, perennial hurdles.
The ESF is plagued by persistent funding challenges and a history of delays in activation. While the bloc previously announced a $2.5 billion security initiative, the operational costs of sustained deployment are immense, requiring major resource mobilization from the African Union (AU) and international partners, including the European Union (EU) and the United Nations.
Furthermore, internal weaknesses within the bloc—including fragmented national security responses and a deeply ingrained mistrust among neighboring states—continue to undermine the effectiveness of a unified force.
The current force of 1,650 troops is widely considered insufficient to combat highly adaptive and increasingly well-armed jihadist groups, such as Boko Haram, ISWAP, and JNIM, which have utilized increasingly sophisticated weaponry to expand their territorial control across the Sahel.
For the London-UK based CJ Global, the limited launch of the ECOWAS Counter-Terrorism Force signifies a moment of truth for African-led security solutions.
The long-term failure to stabilize the Sahel—a consequence of poor governance, poverty, and foreign intervention missteps—is now a direct threat to the stability of the entire West African coast.
The success of this ESF deployment will depend less on the number of boots on the ground and more on the political capacity of ECOWAS to overcome its internal divisions and secure the unified financial and intelligence support necessary to win a war that has escalated far beyond the scope of a limited regional mission.
