Ongoing Algeria Mali Niger Mauritania Tunisia Libya Morocco[1] Al-Qaeda and allies: GSPC (until 2007) Ansar al-Sharia (Libya) (2012–17) Salafia Jihadia[1] Islamic State (from 2014) Amari Saifi (POW) Nabil Sahraoui † Abdelmalek Droukdel † Abu Ubaidah Yusef al-Annabi Abdelhamid Abou Zeid †[19] Mokhtar Belmokhtar † Ahmed al Tilemsi †[20] Seifallah Ben Hassine † Mohamed al-Zahawi † Total armed forces (unless specified): Algeria: 520,000 Mauritania: 15,870 Tunisia: 45,000; 6,000 deployed in Chaambi[21] Libya: 35,000 France: 5,100 deployed in the Sahel[22][23] AQIM (former GSPC): 1,000[2][26][27]–4,000[28] Ansar al-Sharia (Tunisia): 1,000[29] Ansar al-Sharia (Libya): 5,000+[30] Salafia Jihadia: 700+[31] Islamic State Major conflict casualties: Algeria: 5,000+ total killed (2002–11)[42] An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002.

They held the territory for almost a year, until being forced out of the urban areas during a French-led foreign intervention, which was succeeded by the Sahel-wide Operation Barkhane.

[2][19] In Libya, the Islamic State was able to control some limited territory during the Second Libyan Civil War, amid allegations of local collaboration with its AQIM rival.

By late 2003, the group's founder had been supplanted by the even more radical Nabil Sahraoui, who announced his open support for al-Qaeda, thus strengthening government ties between the U.S. and Algeria.

[2] The group now aimed to overthrow all North African governments deemed apostate, including those of Algeria, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

[59] A lack of military resources, often due to turmoil and having little population in a very large country, caused Mauritania to rely on support from France, Morocco, and Algeria in order to defeat the AQIM.

In December 2006 and again in January 2007, Tunisian security forces engaged in clashes with a group linked to the GSPC that had established training camps in mountainous areas near the capital Tunis, killing more than a dozen people.

[63] Starting in 2012, AQIM along with Ansar al-Sharia and the Uqba ibn Nafi Brigade active in the mountainous Jebel ech Chambi region outside Kasserine near the Algeria–Tunisia border have been targeted by the Tunisian Army in the Chaambi Operations.

Drawing defectors from AQIM,[68] the rival Islamic State (IS) organization was later able to control some limited territory in the north in the renewed civil war from 2014.

The AQIM and allied Islamist groups Ansar Dine and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) were able to capture the northern half of Mali after effectively overrunning the state of Azawad, led by former Tuareg fighters from the Libyan Civil War.