Escalating / Global
Global Maritime Chokepoints
Iran holds both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb as US munitions run low and negotiations stall over strait control.
The Global Jihadist Network is what remained after the caliphate fell.
Al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks in 2001 pulled the United States into a two-decade campaign against Sunni jihadist movements, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq incubated the group that became ISIS, which declared a territorial caliphate across Iraq and Syria in 2014. A US-led coalition crushed that caliphate by 2019. The movement did not die. It scattered into franchises: Islamic State branches in the Sahel, West Africa, Afghanistan, and Central Africa, alongside Al-Qaeda affiliates across the same terrain.
The network now grows fastest in the places its enemies are least willing to fight.
IS central's decision to redeploy 150 fighters cross-regionally, splitting them between the Mali-Niger border and Nasarawa in central Nigeria, marks a qualitative shift from franchise expansion to coordinated inter-theater maneuver.
The second jihadist strike on Niamey's airport in June 2026, hitting a facility hosting Niger's military aircraft alongside Russian and Italian forces, confirms capital-level targeting is now doctrine rather than improvisation.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
IS central's cross-regional fighter redeployment following leadership decapitation confirms that targeted killing is functioning as a dispersal catalyst rather than a degradation mechanism.
The four-state ICC bloc withdrawal by Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad eliminates nearly every formal multilateral accountability and intelligence-sharing channel at the precise moment IS is exploiting cross-regional.
Nigeria's twelve-division expansion and 80 percent pay rise for junior ranks buy retention and operational reach across a multi-front security environment.
Historically sponsored via Gulf private donors; currently largely self-financing through taxation, smuggling, and kidnapping in conflict zones
Escalating / Global
Iran holds both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb as US munitions run low and negotiations stall over strait control.
Escalating / Global
Iran war drains US munitions while China converts the constraint window into multilateral maritime and economic leverage.
ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) operates across the Lake Chad basin and is navigating a succession crisis following the May 2026 killing of its.
ISSP (Islamic State Sahel Province) has formalized its first attacks in northwestern Nigeria's Sokoto and Kebbi states.
JNIM (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin) operates as al-Qaeda's primary Sahel franchise across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
ISKP (Islamic State Khorasan Province) functions as the network's South-Central Asia franchise and a demonstrated external-operations node.
AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) is pivoting propaganda toward Sahelian jihadist momentum and reviving English-language lone-actor incitement.