Terrorism attacks and deaths fell sharply worldwide in 2025, including in parts of Africa, but the numbers might tell a more complex story about how terrorists are becoming more entrenched in regions such as the Sahel, according to a new report.
“In 2025, we saw the largest year-on-year reduction in terrorism,” Thomas Morgan, senior research fellow at the Institute for Economics and Peace, told The Africa Report magazine. Morgan was lead author of the Global Terrorism Index 2026.
“Deaths fell 28%, attacks fell 22%, with most of that fall actually occurring in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said. “If you look at a country like Burkina Faso, which has been at the centre of so much terrorist activity over the past few years, it actually had around a 45% fall in deaths over the past year.”
Three of the world’s four deadliest terrorist groups were responsible for fewer deaths in 2025 than in 2024. The Islamic State group, al-Shabaab and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) all are active in Africa.
Even so, Africa remained the epicenter of global terrorism, continuing a yearslong shift to the continent from the Middle East. In 2025, six of the top 10 countries most affected by terrorism were in Africa, according to the index. All 20 of the top deadliest terrorist attacks were in Africa. Four of the top 10, including the top three, happened in Burkina Faso.
Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025 saw increases in deaths caused by terrorism.
Experts cautioned that reductions in deaths in some countries do not equate to a weakening of terrorist groups. In fact, those numbers could point to a more troubling reality: that terrorist groups have changed tactics after becoming entrenched. For example, Sahel-based terrorists such as al-Qaida-affiliated JNIM are holding territory and “embedding themselves within local systems in ways that make them far more difficult to dislodge,” according to The Africa Report.
“What we’re seeing is not a reduction in jihadist capacity but a transition, from hit-and-run attacks to systems of control,” Sahel researcher Alidou Werem told the magazine. “These groups are no longer just violent actors; they are becoming embedded local powers.”
JNIM holds significant territory in central Mali and much of rural Burkina Faso. “The group’s strategic use of porous borders and challenging terrain has allowed it to evade direct confrontations with other groups and counterterrorism forces,” according to the index.
The terrorists use the borders, sections of which are covered by the W-Arly-Pendjari parks complex, to establish hideouts and move back and forth undetected from Burkina Faso into neighboring Benin. The index indicates that the Burkinabe military holds only about 30% of the nation’s territory. Although the number of attacks in 2025 had decreased, JNIM’s lethality was preserved as it killed 1,274 people across four countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
More than three-fourths of the people JNIM killed in 2025 either were police officers or soldiers, the index states. The terrorists also started to blockade parts of Southwestern Mali and kept fuel from reaching Bamako by attacking tankers to weaken the ruling military junta.
“What you have when you look at groups like JNIM in the central Sahel is more control over territory, which in a way paradoxically leads to less terrorist activity, particularly against civilians,” Morgan said. “At the same time, the number of deaths associated with attacks on the military has increased, and the lethality of those attacks has also increased.”
JNIM has developed alliances with criminal groups and smuggling networks. According to a 2025 report by the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, JNIM protected smugglers in Mopti, Mali, and the tri-border Liptako-Gourma region “from what they perceived as corrupt authorities,” adding that in parts of the area in Burkina Faso they had displaced government authorities and given smugglers freedom to operate. JNIM also taxed smugglers less than authorities had, which lets them buy and sell across borders for better prices.
Such developments point to a necessary shift in how authorities should view the terrorist problem, according to The Africa Report. They fill gaps left by ineffective governance and offer income and protection to marginalized communities.
“For people joining armed extremist groups, it’s far less of an explicit ideological motivation, much more related to economic activity, but then also to state repression as well,” Morgan told the magazine.
“If you look at the areas which have had the greatest success in counter-terrorism, they’ve been able to move beyond that securitisation lens and adopt a much broader approach.”