West African leaders meeting over the weekend in Freetown have agreed to create a 2 000-strong regional force to combat terrorism and growing insecurity in the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea.<\/p>\n
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The decision was taken under the framework of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as member states seek to strengthen collective security amid persistent jihadist attacks and cross-border threats.<\/p>\n
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The anti-jihadist force, described as a \u201cstandby\u201d arrangement, will consist of troops stationed in their respective home countries but ready for rapid deployment when required. Leaders also approved a budget of $2.5 billion to support the initiative.<\/p>\n
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Journalist and political analyst Ibrahim Moussa says the move reflects growing urgency among West African states.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is a recognition that terrorism is no longer confined to the Sahel but is steadily spreading towards the Gulf of Guinea,\u201d Moussa explains. \u201cBy creating a standby force, ECOWAS is signalling that it wants faster, more co-ordinated responses instead of relying solely on national armies.\u201d<\/p>\n
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He adds that the success of the force will depend on political will and sustainable financing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe real test will be implementation. Funding pledges are important, but what matters is whether member states will commit troops promptly and allow the force to operate without political interference.\u201d<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15873,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-27754","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"West African leaders meeting over the weekend in Freetown have agreed to create a 2 000-strong regional force to combat terrorism","published_date":"2026-03-05 07:25:00","news_description":"West African leaders meeting over the weekend in Freetown have agreed to create a 2 000-strong regional force to combat terrorism","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27756,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27754\/revisions\/27756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=27754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}