The Sahel now accounts for more than half of terrorism-related deaths worldwide, making Africa the new epicenter of terrorism. For Southeast Asia, the warning is obvious: complacency risks repeating the mistakes that allowed Southeast Asian terrorist networks to regenerate elsewhere.
When President Trump announced the defeat of ISIS in 2019, the world was told the caliphate was over. But insurgencies and terrorist groups do not end with declarations. They adapt, relocate, and regenerate. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where the Sahel has become the global epicenter of terrorism. According to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2025, the Sahel accounted for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths in 2024, surpassing the Middle East and South Asia combined, confirming Africa as the new epicenter of global terrorism.
This shift is not accidental. Counterinsurgency theorist David Kilcullen warned that overwhelming force often turns small insurgencies into larger ones. In The Accidental Guerrilla (2009), Kilcullen, drawing from Jeffrey Race’s study of Vietnam, cautions that heavy-handed responses risk turning a small insurgency, like a “mouse,” into a much larger problem, like an “elephant.”
Applied to the present context, Kilcullen’s analogy frames the mismatch between the US-led coalition against ISIS. The coalition’s overwhelming firepower, focused on dismantling the state-like caliphate in Iraq and Syria, resembled an “elephant” charging through the battlefield. Terrorist groups, however, operated like “mice,” constantly adapting, dispersing, and shifting to new spaces when pressed. This mismatch explains why ISIS has survived as a network and why Africa has emerged as the new theater of terrorist activity.
Africa’s rise as the hub of global terrorism underscores a basic reality: militant groups thrive where governance is weak, local grievances persist, and external pressure only sharpens their ability to adapt. Ignoring this trajectory risks repeating old mistakes and leaving entire regions exposed to the next cycle of extremist resurgence.
Kilcullen’s Framework: “Elephants” and “Mice”
Kilcullen’s analogy of elephants and mice captures the mismatch between the US-led coalition and the fluidity of insurgencies. The War on Terror, led by the United States and its allies, was “elephant-like”: large, unwieldy, and ill-suited for local insurgencies. Massive conventional operations targeted territory, leadership, and institutions but often failed to address the underlying grievances that sustained insurgent movements.
By contrast, terrorist groups operated as “mice”: nimble, adaptive, and deeply embedded within local populations. They shifted between insurgency, terrorism, and criminality, exploiting weak governance and porous borders.
Kilcullen outlined eight best practices for effective counterinsurgency. For Southeast Asia, only three are especially relevant. The first is the need for a political strategy that strengthens state legitimacy while weakening insurgents. The second is the synchronization of governance, development, and security. The third is applying a regional approach to disrupt safe havens and cross-border networks. These three resonate most clearly with the challenges Southeast Asian states face in preventing the migration of terrorist networks to Africa.
Africa as the New Epic enter
Africa’s emergence as the epicenter of terrorism rests on several strong factors that terrorist groups have succeeded in Africa. First, porous borders allow fighters, weapons, and illicit flows to move easily across states. Second, ungoverned spaces give militants the safe havens to regroup, entrench themselves, and even provide basic services absent from the state.
Third, corruption weakens trust in security institutions and weakens counterterrorism capacity, making governments part of the problem. Fourth, deep poverty and a growing youth bulge population create fertile ground for recruitment, while limited opportunities leave many vulnerable to extremist narratives.
Finally, repeated unconstitutional changes of government further diminish state legitimacy, creating openings that armed groups quickly fill. In this environment, terrorist networks in Africa have not only survived but also expanded despite repeated external intervention.
Africa is no longer a peripheral front but an integral part of the Islamic State’s global network. Over two-thirds of IS activity in the first half of 2025 occurred in Africa, and affiliates from the Sahel to Mozambique now feature prominently in IS propaganda.
The Islamic State Somalia Province (ISSP) and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) coordinate across borders in West Africa. In Central Africa, the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) links operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. In the Horn of Africa, IS Somalia serves as a financial and coordination hub through the al-Karrar office.
Africa today is not a sideshow but now constitutes a core part of the Islamic State’s global operations.
Why Southeast Asia Should Care
For Southeast Asia, Africa’s trajectory is not a distant concern. The region has experienced similar dynamics and risks repeating the same mistakes if it turns inward.
The region’s past experience with terrorist mobilization illustrates how flexible and highly mobile insurgent movements are in their transnational reach, what is now commonly referred to as the Foreign Terrorist Fighter (FTF) phenomenon.
In the 1980s, Southeast Asian militants migrate to Afghanistan to join the anti-Soviet jihad, returning home to form groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah. Decades later, the pattern repeated in the 2010s; many Southeast Asian recruits joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq, typically entering through Turkey before moving into areas under ISIS control.
According to the ICCT Foreign Terrorist Fighter Knowledge Hub, it is estimated that 800 to 1,595 Indonesians joined the conflict in Iraq and Syria as foreign fighters, with 181 women among them. About 700 have since returned, while 127 are believed dead. Beyond the risks of returnees, the numbers point to a broader concern: hijra (migration)on this scale creates a pool of fighters that terrorist networks can channel to any active front, including Africa.
If Africa continues to serve as the epicenter, it could plausibly attract Southeast Asian fighters, whether physically or through virtual networks. Already, propaganda from ISIS Central publications has urged global supporters to relocate to Africa and join its provincial branches in combat.
Ignoring Africa would also be a strategic blind spot. Southeast Asian scholarship and policymakers rarely engage with African security dynamics. Yet Africa’s rise as the epicenter has implications for global jihadist strategy, terrorist funding flows, and recruitment. A failure to monitor these trends leaves Southeast Asia strategically unprepared.
Southeast Asia’s Preparedness for the Next Wave
Existing regional frameworks already exist to address the challenge of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs). The Bali Work Plan, coordinated through the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC), provides the framework. Its indicative activities include cooperation with INTERPOL, notably the use of biometric databases for suspected terrorists and strengthened border controls.
In contrast, the ASEAN Plan of Action to Prevent and Counter the Rise of Radicalization and Violent Extremism (2018–2025) sets broad objectives but lacks detailed operational measures on FTFs.
Beyond documents, Southeast Asia has tested practical cooperation. In June 2017, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines launched the Trilateral Cooperative Arrangement (TCA), initiating joint maritime patrols in the Sulu-Celebes Sea in response to a surge in Abu Sayyaf Group kidnappings.
Yet this TCA remains largely inward-looking, focused narrowly on the Sulu-Celebes corridor. If terrorist movements gravitate to Africa, Southeast Asia will need to look beyond the Sulu-Celebes Sea and anticipate potential connections across the Indian Ocean.
Conclusion
The defeat of ISIS’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria was a tactical success but a strategic failure. The coalition’s “elephant-like” strategy dismantled territory but failed to address the conditions that sustain insurgency. As a result, Africa, particularly the Sahel, has become the new epicenter of global terrorism.
If Southeast Asia fails to heed Africa’s lesson, it risks repeating the same mistakes, leaving itself exposed to terrorist networks’ strategies that are like mice against elephant-like states. The challenge is to build adaptive, population-focused approaches that address grievances and strengthen governance, ensuring that terrorist networks cannot find the same fertile ground in Southeast Asia that they have in Africa.
In the past, Turkey served as the main transit point for Southeast Asian foreign fighters bound for Syria and Iraq. Should Africa emerge as the next theater, maritime routes across the Indian Ocean could potentially become alternative pathways, a possibility that calls for early vigilance in Southeast Asia.
