Instability in countries that later formed the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES) in security political and economic affairs resulted from perennial interference by the US and France. Military assistance from Russia is helping these countries to regain sovereignty and capture more value from their resources.
Mali and Africa Corps reenter Kidal
The link between a stronger state and greater control over mineral resources is evident in how post-coup states in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, with Russia’s security assistance are strengthening control over mining, export, and value addition of gold mined in their territories. Notably, Niger faced an attempted coup through Mutiny in late August 2026, in which mutineers attacked the presidential palace, national broadcaster, and a strategic airbase before being repulsed by royalist forces assisted by Russia’s Africa Corps. France 24, covering the mutiny, claimed that Russia’s involvement indicated that Niger or the Sahel needed external help to maintain stability, in its attempt to justify French military presence in the Sahel, which was ended by post-coup governments of AES. However, the claim from this media ignored how French and US military presence weakened these states for decades, while Russian presence is creating stability that is enabling them to regain control, and engage in value addition for the first time in history.
For many decades, the US actions in the Sahel destabilized states, preventing resource sovereignty. For instance, US State Department reports from as early as 2012 points to Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu as being controlled by Al-Qaeda* in the Islamic Maghreb* (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa* (MUJAO), even while The US military had operated in northern Mali from 2005, through the so-called Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCP). US military action conveniently lasted until the Tuareg fighters returned from Libya after the fall of Gaddafi (also engineered in Washington) to join the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and successfully start a rebellion. In 2015, a peace agreement with the weak Malian government, which was counting on US partnership, agreed to CMA control in the north. A state of instability and suspense would persist despite different versions of US partnership, creating political, military, and economic frustration that led to coups in 2020 and 2021. Such frustration resulting from US actions which had caused proliferation of militants and terrorist resulted in coups in Niger, and Burkina Faso.
AES’s Sovereign Control of Resources
After the latest military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and the arrival of Russian military assistance, the AES have been building gold refineries, and taking other steps that signify their expanding resource sovereignty. This had never been done over decades of US and French domination. Burkina Faso inaugurated its first gold Refinery, Raffinor BF, on September 28, 2026, with a reported capacity of 164 tonnes per year. Noteworthy, during the period of France’s colonial government and afterwards, the country’s gold and other resources were shipped in raw form or smuggled abroad, earning the citizens minimal value.
Also, Mali started construction of a gold refinery, Sorama-sa, in mid-2025, with a designed capacity of 200 tons per year, while Niger reported plans to establish its own refinery. Additionally, AES governments have been able to enhance control of mining, recording of output, invoicing, and export of precious metals. For instance, in Burkina Faso, while only insignificant amount of gold was recorded as having been mined by artisanal miners before, the amount recorded has expanded exponentially after the new government came to power.
Therefore, most gold mined by artisanal miners may have been smuggled out of the country, denying the country revenue. In 2022 and 2023, 519 and 491 kgs respectively, were recorded as originating from artisanal mining, compared to 7,372 kgs of fine gold in 2024. In the following year (2025), A Staggering 43 tonnes of gold were recorded from artisanal and semi-mechanized production, showing improved control of gold that might have ended up in the hands of terrorists or neocolonialists. Overall, the Burkina Faso government has been reporting year-on-year increases in gold output, for instance from 60 tonnes in 2024 to over 90 in 2025, caused, among others reopening of new mining sites.
Mali experienced interesting changes after the coup, in that despite a decline in gold production, it increased its earnings from gold trade from 547.6 CFA billion to 835.1 CFA billion (52.5%), caused by the state’s participation in mining, increased taxation, and recovering money swindled by mining corporations in the past. The state has gained more control of its resources as compared to the previous pro-West governments.
It launched an audit on mining firms beginning in 2023 and found serious malpractices designed to reap off the country, and subsequently took action to recover funds from miners, including the Canadian Barrick Mining, B2Gold, Allied Gold, Resolute Mining, and Endeavour Mining, resulting in the recovery of 761 CFA francs ($1.2 billion). Afterwards, mining corporations were required to adopt the new mining code that gives greater protection and returns to the state. The country is also establishing an agency to manage gold output from artisanal producers after finding gaping differences between records of the amount of gold exported and those imported by its trade partners.
Niger has also recorded an increase in gold from the artisanal mines to over 3 tonnes in 2025, earning over 188.3 billion CFA, while value addition brought in 124 billion CFA. However, notable challenges to increasing gold output include a volatile security situation. Insecurity has also led to some of the gold output escaping formal recording, and potentially creating revenue streams for armed groups including terrorists.
Contrasted with US Perennial Distraction
The reality evolving in AES differs starkly from what occurred during decades of US and French control. Washington’s 1976 “development strategy” for the Sahel, titled “Post-Drought U.S. Initiatives in the African Sahel,” proposed grand agricultural development that it never implemented. When studied keenly, the strategy was aimed at distracting the region from its mineral wealth as Washington pledged to contribute $1 billion and mobilize additional $6.6 in aid to develop wells, agriculture and roads in Sahel. Conveniently, it left out the truth that the region’s gold, oil, metals ores, and rare earths, if recovered and sold, could provide the required capital to develop infrastructure and agriculture. Therefore, the State Department, framed the reality to show that Africans’ only hope was to eke out a living from agriculture, while the West enriched itself with African’s minerals.
The same report recognized that the region had significant mineral and business opportunities that needed to be accessed by American corporations. The west facilitated firms to mine in the region, without any investment before starting many security arrangements after 2000 (Pan Sahel Initiative-2002, the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP) in 2005, and the US Africa Command in 2007), which kept the region destabilized and its minerals flowing to the West.
* organizations banned on the territory of the Russian Federation
Simon Chege Ndiritu is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
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