The brazen assault on the worldwide airport and close by army airbase in Niamey, Niger’s capital, got here in a single day between January 28 and 29.
Balls of orange fireplace flew throughout the sky because the Nigerien military tried to reply whereas residents ducked for canopy and whispered prayers, as proven in movies on social media. ISIL (ISIS) in Sahel Province, or ISSP – a Niger-based outfit earlier referred to as the ISIL affiliate within the Higher Sahara or ISGS – has since claimed responsibility and says it killed a number of troopers, though the Nigerien military disputes this.
Really helpful Tales
record of three objectsfinish of record
Analysts say the daring assault exhibits ISSP’s rising confidence at a time when the swarm of armed teams working throughout the troubled Sahel area in Western Africa is increasing its areas of operation with superior expertise. Lots of its fighters had breached army drone hangars utilizing RPGs and mortars, and managed to wreck a number of plane and one civilian aeroplane, in line with movies from the group.
“That is unprecedented,” Heni Nsaibia, a senior analyst on the battle monitoring suppose tank, ACLED, instructed Al Jazeera, noting that ISSP often limits offences to rural areas and makes use of rudimentary weapons like AK-47s.
“They’re refining their assaults and changing into extra skilled in guerrilla warfare. To have the ability to infiltrate and penetrate the capital speaks to itself that they’ve tactical power and boldness,” he mentioned.
Though formally unconfirmed, battle trackers recommend that ISSP might have deployed a drone within the assault, in what would mirror a region-wide pattern that analysts say marks a harmful escalation within the Sahel disaster. ISIL associates have used explosives-laden drones in rural assaults in Nigeria, however by no means in Niger.
“We’ve movies displaying there was nocturnal gunfire from the Nigerien air defence,” Nsaibia added. “It’s attainable they detected drones [from ISIL] used for surveillance, nevertheless it’s solely a speculation.”
Army-ruled Niger has seen an increase in armed assaults since July 2023, when the military seized energy and expelled a whole lot of French and US troops that beforehand offered air and fight help.
Neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, that are additionally ruled by the army, are additionally dealing with comparable violence as a number of armed teams lay declare to swaths of territory throughout their porous borders. The teams intention to regulate territory with out Western affect, and in line with an excessive interpretation of Islamic regulation.
All three nations have pivoted from French troops to the Russian government-controlled Africa Corps, a paramilitary group whose effectiveness has been combined. In a press release following the Niamey assault, the Nigerien and Russian governments mentioned Africa Corps fighters helped “repel” the assault and that 20 of the attackers had been killed, with 4 troopers wounded.
Drone use surges throughout the Sahel
Army drone assaults by the Nigerien forces and different events to the battle are widespread, however the armed teams themselves are more and more repurposing easy-to-buy, easy-to-smuggle Chinese language-made industrial drones for strikes by attaching improvised explosive units (IEDs), grenades, or small mortar shells to them.
It’s a “low-cost, high-impact” functionality that gives the teams with real-time intelligence, minimises their must threat fighters as suicide bombers, and makes it more durable for militaries to detect and counter them, Rida Lyammouri, a senior fellow on the Morocco-based Coverage Middle for the New South (PCNS), mentioned.
Probably the most prolific drone person is the al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which is based in Mali and Burkina Faso. The group has cells in Niger, Togo, and on the Benin-Nigeria border.
JNIM first used a drone in 2023, however with out a vital impression. Nevertheless, the group has since quickly built-in the expertise into battlefield operations, usually pairing drone assaults with floor assaults in a two-pronged method. Between 2023 and 2025, ACLED recorded JNIM utilizing drones at the least 89 instances, with 69 incidents being for assaults. No less than 5 different occasions noticed JNIM drones crash or be intercepted.
“What’s alarming is how rapidly they’ve developed this information,” Lyammouri mentioned.
The actual threat, he added, lies past the group’s capability to make use of drones as a weapon.
“The drones used are very small, and so they don’t carry an necessary quantity of explosives, so the damages plenty of instances aren’t as vital. However what’s necessary is how they use drones to gather data and collect intelligence,” he mentioned.
JNIM depends on the DJI M30T mannequin, a high-end drone with an in-built digicam excellent for night-time surveillance. The cheaper DJI Mavic, which prices between $500 and $700, can be a part of the fleet.
Drones are possible serving to the group monitor gas vans making an attempt to interrupt its blockade on the Malian capital of Bamako, consultants say. Since September, JNIM has sealed off highways utilized by gas tankers importing oil from neighbouring Senegal and the Ivory Coast, inflicting durations of gas shortages throughout Mali.
Equally, the separatist Azawad Liberation Entrance (FLA), which is combating for an impartial state in northern Mali, launched movies final February displaying its fighters controlling a first-person view (FPV) drone – superior fashions that assist pilots have a “cockpit” viewing expertise through particular goggles. The FLA performed 28 drone assaults between 2024 and 2025, in line with ACLED. It used an FPV to down a Malian army helicopter within the northern Tessalit area in July 2024, in line with the battle reporting web site, Army Africa.
ISIL associates are in the meantime utilizing drones to a a lot lesser extent.
The Nigeria-based ISIL affiliate in West Africa Province (ISWAP) has deployed armed drones 10 instances between 2024 and 2026, in line with ACLED. In January, the group focused Nigerian forces raiding one in all its hideouts in northern Borno State with a number of armed drones.
The brand new shift is being accelerated by offline synthetic intelligence (AI) instruments that may assist drones keep away from conventional detection and jamming strategies, Lyammouri mentioned. They’re additionally utilizing these instruments to generate coaching materials, AI-generated pictures and press releases, he added. The open-source MISTRAL, a ChatGPT rival that’s helpful for all the pieces from offline searches to content material era, is one such device.
The shift to drone use by armed teams is international. ACLED in 2025 reported that 469 armed teams – together with insurgent teams, militias, gangs, and transnational cartels world wide – deployed a drone at the least as soon as up to now 5 years, up from solely 10 teams utilizing the expertise in 2020.
Cooperation at a time of tensions
The possible subsequent stage for drone use by armed teams might be AI-enabled “drone swarms” that might launch large-scale distant assaults on authorities positions that includes a number of drones at a time, analysts be aware.
For the teams, there may be loads of incentive to evolve rapidly. Every group is keen to put declare to its territory, and assaults just like the one on Niamey not solely intention to undermine the Nigerien authorities but in addition to sign to rival teams like JNIM to not intrude on that space, Nsaibia mentioned.
Nations within the area might want to work collectively to collectively struggle the teams’ new methods, particularly as they broaden geographically and share applied sciences, Lyammouri warned.
Their “ways are spreading and require a coordinated response”, he mentioned, one that may necessitate bringing collectively drone warfare consultants, AI researchers, and regional army planners to simulate the recorded drone warfare eventualities, like JNIM’s drone-assisted floor assaults and intelligence-gathering patterns.
That’s difficult, nevertheless, amid regional tensions and a fragmented safety response.
Following the 2023 coup in Niger, relations with neighbouring Nigeria grew to become strained. Quickly after, the 2 referred to as off formal defence cooperation following threats by Abuja to guide the regional Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc right into a army intervention to revive civilian rule.
Wider tensions between ECOWAS and the army governments in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso escalated final yr and led to the three exiting to kind their very own union, the Alliance of Sahel States.
Nevertheless, this week, Nigerien and Nigerian safety officers met in Abuja to debate stronger border safety to hamper smuggling routes that the armed teams use to move weapons.
A collective regional answer is the one one which will succeed, consultants agree.
Barring robust counters, necessary city centres like Niamey, often deemed secure, are going to be extra “in danger within the medium to long run”, Nsaibia mentioned.
