Talk:Islamist insurgency in the Sahel

Can we change the image

The image excludes major conflict areas and is about the GSPC, which predates the conflict. It would be understandable to use in the Mahgreb conflict but not in this one. Joaquinazo (talk) 18:54, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

the map is quite outdated.

It is estimated that Burkina Faso does not have control of about 80% of its territory and there are reports of jihadists near the city of Bamako in Mali, even further west, the same reports suggest that there are jihadists in Benin, Togo, the border of Ghana and the Ivory Coast Matias Taboadaxx (talk) 16:37, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

it would even add to the conflict Boko Haram and IS-WAP to the east in Lake Chad Matias Taboadaxx (talk) 16:39, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Overlap between this article and Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present)

Also see Talk:Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present)#Overlap between this article and Islamist insurgency in the Sahel

Am I the only one who questions if we need them to be seperate? Both of these pages seem to broadly cover the same phenomenon of multiple semi-connected Islamist insurgencies in northwestern Africa, though it's not exactly all part of one big war. Maybe we can take both of these articles and merge them together under a new name: Islamist insurgency in the Maghreb and Sahel? Or maybe Islamist insurgency in Northwest Africa? I'm not sure about names yet, but I'm not really sure that we need two different articles, especially when the conflict infoboxes look so similar. AHI-3000 (talk) 19:08, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 26 April 2025

Islamist insurgency in the Sahel → Sahel War – This article was started to accommodate for the expansion of AQIM and later homegrown offshoots like Ansar Dine and al-Mourabitoun in Mali and those groups' brief incursions into Niger, Algeria, and Mauritania. Since then, the conflict has become a war with jihadist groups like JNIM and ISGS being de facto governing authorities in their area. Sahel war has been used since at least 2019 (very light research done, possibly earlier than this) and is used notably by International Crisis Group and experts on the region seen here. Instead of an insurgency against several loosely-aligned jihadist hodgepodges like in Mali in 2014, JNIM now controls a good portion of Burkina Faso, parts of southern Mali, northern Benin, and western Niger, and ISGS has a foothold in western Niger and northeast Burkina. While the war is dominated between AES governments and jihadist groups, switching the name to Sahel War would accommodate for other small but notable groups involved like Dan Na Ambassagou, the FLA and predecessors, and Nigerien anti-government rebels. Jebiguess (talk) 21:48, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Africa and WikiProject Military history have been notified of this discussion. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 04:03, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose, I wanted to support per WP:CONCISE, but a Google search for "sahel war" doesn't bring up any mention of that name referring to the war. The links for ICG and Olech 2024 say "The War in the Sahel" and "The War over the Sahel" respectively, we'd need sources using the exact title. I see a mix of "Jihadist insurgency" and "Islamist insurgency", so there might be something there. Our other articles on the like don't include either though, and just have "Insurgency in X" (other than Islamist insurgency in Burkina Faso and Jihadist insurgency in Niger), so we could move to Insurgency in the Sahel

Kowal2701 (talk) 21:51, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to War in the Sahel, Sahel conflict (2012-present) or it's derivations, I just figured Sahel War would be the most concise. I'd also note that the jihadist insurgency in Niger article originally encompassed only the Tchoma Bangou and Zaroumdareye massacres. Both the Burkina and Niger articles were created a month or two before this one, and their respective French articles (which I'm taking into consideration given that French wiki has much more information on this topic + French-language sources write about the Sahel more) refer to the wider Sahel war as "Guerre du Sahel" and the Burkina Faso insurgency as the jihadist insurgency like we have now; there is no French article for Niger.

Part of my rationale for the move, as stated in the nom, is that the wider war isn't just between Islamist groups and local governments; in Mali there are Tuareg and Dogon factions, and in Niger there are Tuareg and secular anti-government factions, both of which have played and still do play a heavy role in the war.

Similarly, the Mali War's name change came from an inability among English sources to have a name while French sources used Guerre du Mali. Major English-language sources use varying terms all around conflict (ACLED, ODI, WFP, ICRC) or crisis (UNHCR, some ICG articles), whereas French ones have settled on Guerre (EEAS, Hamdaoui 2023, Courier), a precedent I think we should follow. Jebiguess (talk) 17:23, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

The article does cover the Mali war, however the Tuareg and Dogon factions don’t appear to be in the belligerents section of the infobox. The infobox and the current title implies the scope is just on conflict involving jihadists, and the French article is the same. The article’s in a poor state, we should just translate the French one. WP:UE says In deciding whether and how to translate a foreign name into English, follow English-language usage. If there is no established English-language treatment for a name, translate it if this can be done without loss of accuracy and with greater understanding for the English-speaking reader. The BBC call it "Sahel Islamist insurgency", and making this WP:CONSISTENT with our other articles arrive us at the current title. The FT says "Sahel war". Are you saying we should widen its scope? Sahel war (2011-present) might not be a bad idea (otherwise it introduces ambiguity with every war that’s ever happened in the Sahel), and if we kept the scope on conflict involving jihadists, ambiguity with the Tuareg and Dogon factions can be dealt with in a hatnote. There’s also potential for it to be confused with Sudanese civil war (2023-present) Kowal2701 (talk) 18:08, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

There is major cleanup to be done (which I will work on) regarding the state of the infobox, timeline, impact, etc. and the French article is updated more often than English. The war itself is primarily based between jihadist groups and AES governments, although the ethnic tensions between groups in many areas (eg. Tuareg conflict and Fulani-Mossi conflict, external Nigerien rebels) makes the jihadist vs. government view too narrow in my eyes. There's parallels to be made with renaming this to Sahel war > Islamist insurgency in the Sahel and Sudanese civil war (2023-present) > SAF-RSF war because even though there's two major blocs, smaller groups are crucial to presenting information about the war. It's not far off to describe the scope regarding belligerents, timeline, and ethnic tensions here as akin to Syria. Jebiguess (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

I didn't even know about the Fulani-Mossi conflict. Thank you for the work you're doing. I'll support Sahel war (2011-present) (lowercase since it's not a WP:PROPERNAME and WP:NCCAPS is pretty strict) and widening its scope a little (we'd need another map). If you're going to update it regularly, you can nominate it for WP:ONGOING at WP:ITN? Would get more views Kowal2701 (talk) 20:04, 30 April 2025 (UTC)