Briefing on Continental Early Warning and Security Outlook
Briefing on Continental Early Warning and Security Outlook Date | 15 December 2025
Tomorrow (16 December), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) is expected to convene a briefing on the continental early warning and security outlook in the afternoon.
Following opening remarks by Ennio Maes, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire to the AU and Chairperson of the PSC for December 2025, a representative of the Department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), is expected to make a statement. It is also expected that the Executive Secretary of the Committee of Intelligence and Security Service of Africa (CISSA), Jackson V. Hamata, and a representative of the AU Mechanism for Police Cooperation (AFRIPOL) will make statements, followed by a briefing that the AU Counter-Terrorism Centre (AUCTC) will deliver on its analytical report on the security and terrorism landscape on the continent.
The last time the PSC met on this theme was in August 2025, at its 1298th meeting. From the communiqué it adopted after the session, among the decisions Council had was tasking the AU Commission, together with AUCTC, AFRIPOL, CISSA and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), ‘to establish and institutionalise, by December 2025, a dynamic and continuously updated risk mapping tool to allow the PSC to strengthen its ability to engage in early warning for early action, by providing a consolidated picture of threats, vulnerabilities and potential triggers, including colour-coded risk levels linked to a pre-authorised menu of diplomatic, security and stabilisation tools’ as well as ‘an annual review of acted/missed alerts with lessons-learned.’
Africa’s security landscape remains volatile, accentuated by the global surge in insecurity, with terrorism and armed conflict continuing to drive widespread and persistent political violence across the continent. The Sahel remains the structural epicentre of the terrorism threat on the continent, with the central Sahel – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – facing the most protracted and escalating terrorist violence. In this environment of institutional, socio-economic and climatic vulnerability, extremist groups exploit shared ethnic, commercial, and migratory networks, facilitating the seamless movement of fighters, weapons, and resources across porous borders. A recent UN Security Council Report highlighted that in Mali, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), an Al-Qaida affiliate, has attacked more than 100 fuel tankers and abducted fuel truck drivers near the capital, Bamako, and other parts of the country. The group’s months-long siege has disrupted access to essential supplies to Bamako. The prolonged fuel blockade had precipitated a severe nationwide fuel crisis, forcing the closure of schools and universities while triggering a sharp contraction in economic activity. Diplomatic missions significantly reduced their staffing, and several partner governments issued urgent travel advisories urging their citizens to depart the country. These developments represent a profound escalation in JNIM’s economic warfare strategy, seeking to undermine the military government’s legitimacy, exacerbating humanitarian vulnerabilities – including reduced lifesaving aid operations and risks to millions dependent on them – and raising fears of broader instability that could further erode state control and fuel regional spillover effects.
In Niger, the recent attack in Assamakka killed six Nigerien Soldiers. JNIM claimed it had taken control of the border post there. The Nigerian military confirmed that militants from the Mali-based JNIM killed one soldier during an ambush in western Kwara State, near the border with Benin. This marked JNIM’s first confirmed attack inside Nigeria, a move which underscored the expanding reach of Sahelian extremist groups deeper into West Africa, which signals a new multi-front threat in the region. A recent Amani Africa analysis on the situation in the Sahel also highlighted that the Tillabéri region – bordering Mali and Burkina Faso – has seen a sharp rise in terrorist attacks. In early September, an ambush in the region resulted in the deaths of 14 soldiers, according to the Nigerian Ministry of Defence.
Burkina Faso also remains one of the most severely affected countries. Extremist groups exert control or significant influence over vast rural areas – estimates ranging from 40% to as much as 60% of the national territory outside major urban centres. In these regions, groups such as the JNIM and the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) function as the de facto authorities, operating checkpoints to regulate movement, imposing taxes on transport, commerce, and local economies (including ‘zakat’ funds and levies on smuggling routes), adjudicating disputes under their interpretation of sharia, and controlling access to land, water, and resources. While a full encirclement of Ouagadougou is not imminent, ongoing territorial gains, blockades of peripheral towns, and disruptions to supply routes have made isolation of the capital an increasingly plausible scenario should the collapse of outlying areas persist.
Somalia, on the other hand, remains mired in a deepening crisis, marked by a resurgent jihadist insurgency led by al-Shabaab. Without a fundamental shift in strategy and if the serious challenges facing the AU mission are not addressed, plausible near-term outcomes include the collapse of the federal government or an al-Shabaab seizure of the capital, with severe implications for regional stability. As the group launched a major offensive across central Somalia in early 2025 – intensifying from April onward – the group has since captured a series of strategic towns from Somali forces. By July, the militants had advanced to within roughly 50 kilometres of the capital, effectively encircling much of it, establishing checkpoints on approaches, and prompting many foreign embassies to evacuate non-essential staff to Kenya. The advance then inexplicably stalled, allowing the federal government to declare a tentative ‘victory.’ The group has since focused on building forces around Mogadishu while escalating attacks within the city. In October 2025, an al-Shabaab suicide squad stormed a high-security facility run by the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), destroying critical intelligence assets and freeing dozens of prisoners – just meters from the presidential palace at Villa Somalia.
Beyond the foregoing, it would be of major interest for the PSC to consider in its discussion the need to fully reinstitutionalise the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) to effectively anticipate and address conflicts, as highlighted in its 1251st meeting held in December 2024. Measures also need to be stepped up to address structural drivers which fuel the geographic expansion of terrorism and violent extremist actors across Africa, including: weak governance and state fragility, pervasive poverty and youth marginalisation, socioeconomic inequalities, intercommunal tensions, and the proliferation of illicit economies linked to transnational organised crime. The effects of climate change cannot go unmentioned, as it exacerbates these underlying pressures by accelerating desertification, disrupting rainfall patterns, depleting scarce resources, and triggering widespread displacement. These environmental stresses erode livelihoods and heighten competition over dwindling land, water, and pasture, creating vulnerabilities that extremist groups skillfully exploit – positioning themselves as alternative providers of resource access, mediators in local disputes, or protectors of marginalised communities.
More so, illicit economies serve as vital revenue sources for extremist groups across Africa, embedding them deeply within complex transnational supply chains. Activities such as artisanal gold mining, fuel trafficking, narcotics transhipment, illegal logging, wildlife poaching, human smuggling, and maritime piracy not only generate substantial funds but also enable these actors to exert influence over local communities and cross-border networks. Kidnapping for ransom also remains a particularly pernicious financing mechanism, undermining continental counter-terrorism efforts.
In addition, Amani Africa’s Special Research Report, ‘Towards a New Agenda for Peace and Security in Africa: New Security Threats and the Future of the Peace and Security Council’ highlighted that one of the new security threats in Africa arises from the expansion of the use of emerging technologies. Technological advancements have revolutionised the operational landscape for extremist groups, enabling the use of drones for surveillance, targeted strikes, and intimidation; encrypted platforms for decentralised coordination and agile tactics, including mobilisation of resources; and sophisticated online ecosystems – including AI-generated propaganda – to manipulate narratives, undermine state legitimacy, sow communal divisions, and recruit transnationally. Crypto-based transactions and mobile money systems further evade oversight, with digital laundering techniques complicating tracing and accountability efforts.
The expected outcome of the session is a communiqué. The PSC is expected to note the briefing and updates from AUCTC, AFRIPOL, and CISSA, and may underscore the need for continued cooperation and collaboration in enhancing early warning, intelligence sharing, and coordinated responses to terrorism and transnational organised crime. The PSC is also likely to condemn all acts of terrorism and violent extremism, as well as the exploitation of communities and the use of illicit economies by armed groups. It may stress the imperative to bridge the early warning-early action gap, critical for the PSC, AU institutions, and Member States to take timely, evidence-informed preventive actions early enough against threats like conflict, terrorism, and organised crime. Council is also expected to emphasise the need for enhanced collaboration, including information sharing, between and among Member States, as well as with international partners, including technology firms, to more effectively counter the exploitation of digital platforms by terrorist and violent extremist groups. Council may also reiterate its 1298th meeting statement on the need for AU’s risk capacity to anticipate risks through the CEWS, and to ensure that its analysis directly informs the PSC’s agenda-setting and deliberations. It may also reiterate the need for restoring the institutional base of CEWS and for making CEWS the anchor of the early warning and early action initiatives of the AU, working in coordination with the APRM, AUCTC, AFRIPOL, CISSA and the early warning systems of the Regional Economic Communities/Mechanisms.