Editor's Note: In the coming year, RANE will analyze the geopolitics of natural resources and raw materials. This series will be published periodically throughout the remainder of 2026; you can find all parts here.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, armed groups are bolstering their material capabilities and political influence by exploiting weak governance to advance varying levels of control over critical natural resources, and climate stress will intensify this trend in the coming years. In recent years, some of the most active jihadist and rebel groups in sub-Saharan Africa have significantly strengthened their operational capacity. This development has been partly facilitated by armed groups' control and taxation of natural resources, which enables them to better finance recruitment, procure weapons and sustain wider operations. Among the most high-profile cases, the Rwanda-backed M23 seized key mineral-rich areas in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, including the large coltan Rubaya mine in North Kivu province in May 2024, marking a major expansion of its control over critical mineral revenues and associated taxation networks across parts of North and South Kivu. Beyond Congo, al Qaeda Sahel affiliate Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, has strengthened its capacity to conduct large-scale, nationwide attacks, especially in Mali, in part by exploiting forested logging zones and timber trade routes and imposing fees and "access taxes" on illegal loggers and traders, effectively turning these supply chains into revenue-generating systems that reinforce its territorial control and local influence. In the same region of the western Sahel, Islamic State Sahel Province has continued to finance itself through taxation of artisanal gold mining, sustaining operational capacity. Meanwhile, Islamic State West African Province, which operates in the Lake Chad Basin that connects Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, also maintains a structured, quasi-governance taxation model, including via influence over fisheries, reflecting a more systemic integration into local economic activity.

• According to a United Nations Group of Experts report published in May 2024, M23 generates an estimated $800,000 per month through control and taxation of mineral extraction and trade. While these assets likely strengthen local financing and sustain operations, they are not the primary driver of M23's military expansion, which is more directly enabled by external backing — particularly from Rwanda — and broader security and political objectives. 
• Months after seizing the Rubaya mine, M23 took full control of Goma, the capital of Congo's North Kivu province, in early 2025, before later advancing into other strategic areas, including Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province. This further tightened the group's grip over key transport corridors and supply networks, significantly disrupting government access to mineral exports and reinforcing the diversion of resources through rebel-controlled trade routes.

Non-state armed groups have increasingly embedded themselves in systems of resource extraction and taxation in fragmented and weakly governed environments, reinforced by sustained demand for these commodities and opaque supply chains that at times enable their integration into international markets. For decades, non-state actors — including jihadist groups, rebel movements and fragmented local militias — relied on resource-linked financing models, with operational priorities varying significantly across different geographies and contexts. In some cases, exploitation has been largely opportunistic and centered on episodic looting or short-term control of fixed resource sites. More sophisticated models have centered on direct control of high-value extractive industries, such as diamond mining during the Angolan, Sierra Leonean and Liberian civil wars, in which armed actors used resource capture to sustain military operations and territorial influence. Many non-state actors, especially those that emerged in the last 15 to 20 years, have increasingly employed the latter model type, evolving into more structured systems of extraction and taxation embedded within local economies where state authority is weak or inconsistently enforced, including due to pervasive corruption and informal protection arrangements. This strategy has increased these groups' resilience and made conflict dynamics more durable and harder to disrupt. Stationary or semi-stationary resources such as mineral deposits, timber zones, fisheries and local trading hubs and marketplaces provide more predictable and repeatable revenue streams that armed groups are increasingly able to scale up, particularly as the strategic and commercial importance of certain commodities, especially minerals, has increased within regional and global supply chains. At the same time, continued regional demand for low-cost minerals, timber, fuel, fish and other commodities — combined with weak traceability mechanisms and complex intermediary trading networks — creates permissive market conditions that enable conflict-linked resources to enter regional and potentially global supply chains. In many cases, this indirectly sustains armed group financing by preserving the profitability of illicit extraction and cross-border trade networks even where direct links between end markets and armed actors are obscured. 

• These patterns have also been observed in other conflict regions. For instance, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia historically taxed coca production and controlled trafficking corridors. In Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State similarly relied on oil extraction, taxation and control of trade routes during its territorial peak, reflecting a comparable logic of resource exploitation under conditions of weak or contested state authority.
• Many armed groups have shifted from opportunistic exploitation to more structured and embedded extraction economies. For instance, in the Lake Chad Basin, Islamic State West African Province and its rival, Jama'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihad, also known as JAS or Boko Haram, have engaged in sustained competition and periodic infighting over territorial control of islands and fishing grounds, with fisheries emerging as a key source of taxation and contestation due to their economic importance to local populations. In the western Sahel and Central Africa, groups such as JNIM and various rebel groups in Congo and the Central African Republic have similarly shifted from transient raiding to sustained control over timber concessions and artisanal mining sites, embedding themselves in extraction chains and imposing structured levies on production and trade. 
• In some cases, insurgent trajectories also reverse over time, particularly where state responses, amnesties or internal fragmentation reduce organizational cohesion and long-term resource control. A distinct example is the Niger Delta militancy in Nigeria, where groups such as the now-inactive Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta escalated attacks on oil infrastructure and engaged in oil theft, sabotage and extortion throughout the 2000s, peaking around 2006-09 before a government amnesty program in 2009 significantly reduced large-scale insurgent activity and contributed to a subsequent shift toward less structured forms of criminality and informal oil-related economies. However, the region remains vulnerable to periodic disruption and potential re-escalation if governance arrangements deteriorate.

Insurgent financing systems will likely remain geographically shaped but increasingly adaptive, with armed groups combining mobile taxation and selective, time-bound control over economically concentrated nodes, alongside fixed-site extraction in resource-rich areas, to sustain diversified revenue streams under uneven and contested state authority. Insurgent financing systems are strongly shaped by geography, but not fully determined by it, meaning armed groups adjust how they raise money depending on the environment, the strength of the state and how easily people and resources can move. In mineral-rich and forested areas such as eastern Congo and the Central African Republic, groups are more likely to focus on fixed-site control because deposits of valuable resources like gold, coltan, diamonds and timber cannot be moved, which encourages long-term occupation of mining zones and forest areas. In more open, dry and mobile environments such as the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, resources and populations move more frequently, so armed groups are more likely to rely on mobile taxation systems, such as taxing fishing activities, livestock routes, farming cycles and cross-border trade, while increasingly complementing these with localized, semi-fixed extraction from resource nodes such as artisanal mining areas and timber or charcoal production sites where economic activity is sufficiently concentrated, alongside more selective and time-bound control of these same nodes depending on shifts in enforcement pressure. For example, groups like Islamic State West African Province have built revenue systems around Lake Chad's fisheries and local markets, while other actors in the Sahel adapt similarly to shifting seasonal economies and weak state reach, layering mobile taxation over opportunistic, short-duration control of commercial and extractive hubs when conditions permit. A comparable pattern is visible in Somalia, where al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab generates sustained revenue through systematic checkpoint taxation, levies on agricultural production in riverine areas and control of trade corridors linking Mogadishu to regional and cross-border markets. This strategy enables al Shabaab to maintain financial resilience even when it loses urban territory under military pressure, reinforcing continuity of revenue generation despite fluctuating territorial control. And in coastal and riverine areas such as northern Mozambique's Cabo Delgado, geography creates incentives for armed groups to adopt a mixed (hybrid) model, where they combine temporary control of mining sites, taxation of local trade and disruption of transport or smuggling routes. For instance, Islamic State Mozambique Province operates across land, sea and border economies in a highly flexible way depending on where state enforcement is weakest, with patterns of control and extraction shifting dynamically.

Armed groups will likely exploit natural resources through physical seizure, embedded economic extraction via informal control, fragmented or otherwise contested control, and full war economy models centered on consolidated control of resources and cross-border smuggling networks. Looking ahead, armed groups will likely continue to follow at least four distinct, though sometimes overlapping, pathways across conflict theatres. First, some groups will demonstrate the intent and capability to seize and temporarily control resource-rich areas such as mines, forests and key trade corridors. This is most likely a model reserved for larger and well-resourced groups in areas with limited or absent state presence and military capabilities, where armed groups have stronger local force projection or have co-opted communities through coercion, ethnic linkages or provision of "protection" services in place of the state, as M23 has done in eastern Congo. Second, other groups including JNIM, Islamic State West African Province and several Islamist and militia actors in the Central African Republic and eastern Congo will deepen their integration into durable informal economies, embedding themselves within local markets and extracting value through taxation, brokerage and control of trade flows rather than formal administrative governance. This model would reduce exposure to military pressure by dispersing revenue collection across civilian economies and avoiding reliance on fixed territorial control, making it more appealing for groups with comparatively fewer resources and personnel. Third, control over resource sites in some places will remain fragmented and contested, resulting in repeated gains and losses of territorial and economic dominance by different parties rather than consolidation, highlighting a broader trend toward persistent instability. Fourth, a distinct model is evident in Sudan's Darfur region, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exercise predominant control over much of the territory and key urban centers, enabling sustained access to gold production and associated smuggling networks that help finance large-scale military operations amid the ongoing civil war. Rather than conventional territorial governance, this model is based on control over extraction hubs and trade routes through intermediaries and the taxation of cross-border flows, creating a resilient war economy that does not depend on formal institutions. This strategy reinforces the Rapid Support Forces as a hybrid actor capable of sustaining protracted conflict at the national scale, underpinned by strong external demand for Sudanese gold in regional and international markets, including Gulf-linked trading hubs, which provides continuous liquidity for conflict-linked production even under conditions of sanctions and war.

• An example of the first model would be M23's actions in eastern Congo, where it combines military superiority over local security forces with external backing while also framing its presence as protection for Tutsi minority communities. This strategy is reinforced by sustained downstream industrial demand for battery and electronics supply chains reliant on 3T minerals (tin, tantalum and tungsten). 
• The second model is likely to become increasingly evident in the Lake Chad Basin, where Islamic State West African Province will likely further institutionalize taxation across fisheries, agricultural production and shoreline trade, embedding itself more deeply within everyday economic activity in areas of limited state authority and turning civilian livelihoods into increasingly stable revenue streams that are harder to disrupt through conventional military pressure. A similar but less institutionalized pattern will likely persist and potentially expand in northern Mozambique's Cabo Delgado, where Islamic State Mozambique Province is attempting to monetize artisanal mining through a combination of ad hoc taxation of miners, temporary control of mining sites, direct participation in small-scale extraction and kidnapping miners for ransom, although these activities are expected to remain fragmented, opportunistic and far less systematic than the quasi-governance models observed in the Lake Chad Basin. These systems are sustained by cross-border commercial intermediaries who normalize illicit commodity flows within regional trading hubs.
• For many years, the third model was evident in the Central African Republic, where control over key resource-rich areas, including artisanal mining zones such as Ndassima, repeatedly shifted between rebel coalitions and state-aligned forces, the latter remaining the current case. This reflects a layered system of authority in which security control, economic extraction and political oversight remain partially overlapping and unstable rather than fully consolidated. In July 2025 the Central African Republic's government signed a peace agreement dissolving key rebel groups and initiated elements of a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process, but the deal remains fragile, consistent with earlier agreements since the rebel insurgency re-escalated in 2012. With Russia's Wagner Group maintaining a presence and control over key resource sites, significant risks persist if reintegration efforts falter or splinter factions and remaining key rebel elements return to armed activity and seek to control or access mining sites.
• Limited resources and uneven regional security cooperation, driven by divergent national security priorities and internal instability, have constrained coordinated state responses against groups such as Islamic State West African Province, JNIM and Islamic State Sahel Province, enabling them to exploit porous borders and continue operating across transnational frontier zones. This has also weakened sustained control and maintenance of resource-rich areas, enabling these groups to extract value from and entrench themselves within mining sites, trade corridors and local economies with limited or inconsistent state pushback.

Climate stresses that amplify preexisting vulnerabilities will likely expand opportunities for armed groups to embed themselves within local economies through coercion, taxation and adaptable resource-exploitation systems. In the years ahead, climate variability, worsened by rapid demographic growth, will likely place additional strain on fragile rural economies, increasing competition over land, water, food production and livelihoods in ways that armed groups can exploit for recruitment, coercion and revenue generation. However, environmental pressure alone is unlikely to drive insurgent expansion unless combined with weak governance, poor local dispute-resolution mechanisms, corruption and/or inconsistent state security presence in peripheral areas. In Sudan's Darfur region, for example, prolonged desertification, shrinking grazing land and population pressures have intensified competition between pastoralist and farming communities, contributing to recurring cycles of communal violence and armed mobilization involving local militias and armed factions competing for territorial and economic influence. Similarly, in Nigeria's northwestern states, worsening rural insecurity, economic decline and pressure on farming and grazing systems have enabled heavily armed bandit groups to expand kidnapping, cattle rustling and taxation networks across poorly governed rural areas, increasingly blurring the line between criminality and insurgent-style economic control. In parts of Central Africa and coastal West Africa, worsening economic stress is also likely to deepen reliance on informal and illicit economies, creating further openings for armed groups to embed themselves within smuggling, trafficking and artisanal extraction systems. A growing long-term risk is the cross-regional adaptation of insurgent financing models, where armed groups increasingly replicate successful systems of taxation, resource control and informal market regulation developed in other conflict theatres where governance vacuums persist.

Resource access is increasingly strengthening armed groups' durability and geographic reach, enhancing their coercive and technological capabilities and, in some cases, enabling them to extract concessions or evolve into hybrid governance actors, collectively heightening their physical threats and their ability to create political instability. Resource access will increasingly enable armed groups to sustain operations and, in some cases, extend insurgent activity beyond rural areas, potentially threatening key government administrative and security hubs, or even capital cities, or forcing major concessions. In some cases, this may enable armed groups to evolve from purely insurgent formations into hybrid political-security actors capable of shaping governance arrangements in contested territories. Access to significant resource streams that enable them to finance equipment like kamikaze drones will likely further strengthen armed groups' ability to undermine state authority by sustaining long-term campaigns, expanding recruitment and deepening coercive control over commercial and civilian networks. This dynamic is already visible in Mali, where JNIM has combined economic pressure tactics with a sustained blockade affecting the capital, Bamako, restricting access to essential goods such as fuel and increasing pressure on the state. While this undermines the junta's legitimacy and could lead to nationwide unrest and/or trigger another coup, it has also increased the group's bargaining leverage, contributing to negotiated concessions, including prisoner releases and temporary de-escalation arrangements. In parallel, regional patterns indicate an emerging willingness among jihadist groups to target higher-value symbolic and strategic sites, including capital-adjacent infrastructure, as seen in Islamic State Sahel Province's attack on Niger's Niamey airport in January, alongside repeated threats by Islamic State West African Province and JAS-linked elements suggesting potential intent to pressure Nigeria's capital Abuja and other high-profile centers. A similar pattern is observable in eastern Congo, where M23 is increasingly consolidating a durable governance footprint, positioning itself as a long-term administrative and security actor rather than a purely mobile armed group. 

• Islamic State West African Province, Islamic State Sahel Province, Tuareg rebel factions in northern Mali and M23 have all increasingly demonstrated the use of kamikaze drones and other low-cost commercial systems adapted for battlefield purposes, including improvised explosive delivery and surveillance missions. This growing adoption is partly enabled by expanded access to diversified revenue streams, including taxation, illicit trade and control of local resource economies, which provide the funding necessary to acquire and modify commercial technologies for operational use.