Inside the Sahel war economy

Yet by July 2026, over 1,000 tankers had reached the capital anyway, escorted by Russia’s Africa Corps and, increasingly, Turkish drones. Petrol that cost $25 a litre before September now costs $130. Somewhere between “blockade” and “a thousand tankers delivered under fire” is the real story: this was never a siege built to starve a capital. It is a toll booth, and the jihadists manning the checkpoints and the junta managing the convoys are both taking a cut of the same barrels.

France’s Operation Barkhane, which had at least contested jihadist freedom of movement on the highways, finished withdrawing from Mali in August 2022 and from Niger by the end of 2023. The United States shut its last base in the region, the drone facility at Agadez, in September 2024.