The power of Sahelian terrorism does not come from abroad it comes from the state's own weaknesses

For years, the dominant image of Sahelian terrorism has been one of foreign-armed q roaming the desert in pickup trucks, their weapons flowing in from Libyan arsenals, Middle Eastern patrons or shadowy international networks. It is a compelling story. It is also, according to the most rigorous field investigation yet conducted on the subject, largely wrong.

What eight years of weapons tracing actually found Conflict Armament Research spent eight years investigating arms flows into Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Lake Chad Basin, examining more thyan 700 weapons recovered between 2015 and 2023. The conclusion overturns much of the conventional narrative: jihadist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State do not rely on exceptional international supply chains. Instead, at least a fifth of the weapons documented were traced directly to the stockpiles of national armies, seized in attacks on military posts or abandoned during retreats.