Parakou, Benin – Till a number of years in the past, the sound of Iliyasu Yahuza’s matte black Qlink X-Ranger 200 motorcycle would deliver the neighbourhood kids out into the road. They’d abandon their video games and rush to the roadside, waving excitedly and shouting his identify.
Now, they scatter and conceal.
And it isn’t simply the youngsters; throughout all walks of life within the distant villages of northern Benin, the rumble of a motorcycle engine now stirs concern and terror because it’s turn out to be synonymous with armed fighters roaming the area.
For Yahuza, a 34-year-old dealer who has spent years navigating the bumpy roads between distant farms and native markets, the swap “cuts deep”.
His motorcycle was as soon as a logo of success in his neighborhood in rural Brignamaro, some 500km (310 miles) away from the capital metropolis, Porto-Novo. Now, he feels it’s a legal responsibility that marks him as a possible menace.
“Folks have begun seeing me as a member of the armed group launching assaults on this area,” Yahuza informed Al Jazeera.
“I now not really feel safe using a motorcycle.”
In recent times, bikes have turn out to be the popular mode of transport for armed teams working not solely in Benin, however throughout the Sahel from Burkina Faso to Mali to Niger. Fighters on motorbikes have modified the face of battle, specialists say.
In line with a 2023 report by the International Initiative Towards Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), motorbikes are “some of the broadly trafficked commodities within the Sahel”, deeply embedded within the area’s felony economic system, and “indispensable to the violent extremist armed teams” working in West Africa’s borderlands.
Within the course of, public sentiment in the direction of these automobiles, and people who drive them, has shifted, with a shadow now solid over every day riders like Yahuza.
Satisfaction earlier than the autumn
Life in Brignamaro used to maneuver to a special rhythm years in the past, Yahuza remembers. Youngsters’s laughter chased the echo of his Qlink X-Ranger – at the moment a rarity in these elements – as his friends seemed on in admiration and delight.
The shift started in 2023, when roughly 12 suspected armed fighters, all mounted on motorbikes, attacked his neighborhood.
They terrorised the village and kidnapped a recognized businessman. All through that 12 months, similar incidents rippled throughout northern Benin’s provinces, from Alibori to Tanguita and Materi. The sample was all the time the identical. Armed males would arrive quick, strike exhausting, and disappear into the panorama on their versatile machines.
As a businessman dealing in soya beans, maize, and groundnuts, Yahuza had chosen his motorcycle for purely sensible causes. The automobile may navigate the tough terrain connecting scattered farming communities, and would last more than strange bikes.
“That was the foremost purpose I selected the motorcycle. Additionally, it lasts longer than an strange bike and for that, it takes about two years earlier than I alter one,” he defined.
However extra just lately, practicality has given solution to paranoia.
Safety forces repeatedly cease Yahuza, demanding documentation and explanations. Even minor disagreements with neighbours can tackle sinister undertones.
“The locals in my neighborhood are elevating eyebrows at me. I may bear in mind having a minor misunderstanding with a colleague, and he was fast to profile me as a militant,” he recounted.
Weapon of alternative
Very similar to the Toyota pick-up trucks that grew to become synonymous with ISIL (ISIS) fighters in Syria and Iraq greater than a decade in the past, motorbikes have emerged because the tactical automobile of alternative for Sahelian fighters.
Teams like al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), with an estimated 6,000 fighters forming the area’s most closely armed insurgent drive, have perfected the artwork of bike warfare. Quick, nimble, and straightforward to hide, these bikes allow hit-and-run techniques completely suited to the Sahel’s huge, sparsely populated terrain.
In early 2025 alone, JNIM fighters launched a coordinated marketing campaign of assaults: 30 troopers killed in Benin, greater than 50 folks close to Kobe in Mali, 44 worshippers in Niger’s Fambita, and 200 troops at Burkina Faso’s Djibo navy outpost. In every assault, motorbikes supplied the pace and shock that made these assaults attainable.
“Motorbikes have turn out to be a vital mobility device for terrorists, together with bandits throughout the Sahel,” defined Timothy Avele, a counterterrorism skilled and managing director of Agent-X Safety Restricted.
The attraction is multifaceted, in keeping with the skilled. “Concealment turns into simpler” when fighters can scatter and conceal their automobiles. The Sahel’s difficult terrain, with desert expanses, dense forests, and mountainous areas, “favours two-wheeled transport over bigger automobiles”. Maybe most significantly, the economics work within the fighters’ favour.
“One other key issue is the decrease gasoline price utilizing motorbikes for his or her operations and mobility in comparison with, say, Hilux vehicles,” Avele added.
Constructed to final
Within the workshop of Abdulmajeed Yorusunonbi in Tchatchou, some 510km (317 miles) from Porto-Novo, the 31-year-old mechanic swears by the sturdiness of those machines. As an area mechanic, he sees firsthand why armed teams favour these automobiles over strange bikes.
“The one easy fault motorbikes typically get is flat tires. It’s solely on uncommon events that you will note the engine needing a restore. Their sturdiness is second to none,” Yorusunonbi famous.
This reliability makes them excellent for insurgent operations, the place mechanical failure may imply seize or dying. But it surely additionally implies that as soon as acquired, these automobiles stay within the palms of armed fighters for years, multiplying their tactical worth.
Like many in his commerce, Yorusunonbi has developed his personal casual screening system to filter out unscrupulous shoppers. He watches for telltale indicators – prospects who pay in money with out haggling, those that keep away from eye contact, or teams arriving collectively. However in a area the place poverty is widespread and lots of authentic prospects share these similar traits, certainty stays elusive.
The psychological influence on communities has been profound. Yaru Mako, 41, a farmer in Kerou, 482km (300 miles) from Porto-Novo, informed Al Jazeera he now forces himself to imagine that whoever drives a motorcycle has affiliations with the armed teams. “As a result of in all of the circumstances of assaults we have now had and heard, the perpetrators all the time used motorbikes. Largely, they’re two individuals per motorcycle,” he defined.
This suspicion has actual penalties. In early 2024, Yahuza discovered himself detained for hours by troopers in Kerou who questioned his id and motives. Solely his native connections saved him from a worse destiny.
“I used to be fortunate that I do know many individuals who correctly recognized me as an harmless particular person,” he stated.
Junaidu Woru, a Tanguita resident, voices what many now imagine: that non-fighters ought to abandon motorbikes totally for their very own security.
“Harmless folks ought to keep away from utilizing these bikes for their very own security. As a result of when an assault occurs, and an harmless particular person drives across the space at that specific time, they are often mistaken for a militant,” he warned.
The underground economic system
The movement of motorbikes into the palms of armed teams follows complicated routes via West Africa’s porous borders. Benin, as soon as a significant importer of bikes, noticed its official commerce disrupted in 2022 when new taxes have been imposed, together with larger VAT charges and import levies.
Earlier than that, bikes have been exempt from import duties. The federal government later imposed customs levies to spice up home income, a fiscally pushed transfer. Nonetheless, the coverage spurred increased smuggling through border hotspots like Malanville and Hillacondji, elevating safety considerations about untracked automobiles doubtlessly reaching felony teams within the Sahel.
In line with merchants in northern Benin, these measures have pushed the commerce underground, with consumers more and more sourcing bikes from neighbouring international locations and smuggling them throughout borders. The bikes enter via numerous routes; from Nigeria throughout the northern border into Niger, or via Beninese territory, the place they’re loaded onto pirogues and transported upstream on the River Niger.
In Parakou’s markets, Zubair Sabi sells motorbikes like Yahuza’s Qlink X-Ranger 200 for about 900,000 CFA francs ($1,590). Some fashions fetch multiple million CFA ($1,770), whereas others promote for as little as 750,000 CFA ($1,330), costs that put them inside attain of well-funded armed teams.
“As a businessman, all I’m keen on is promoting my items,” Sabi stated, earlier than acknowledging the ethical complexity of his place. “I don’t thoughts verifying the id of the shopper earlier than promoting to them. However I can’t actually say who precisely is shopping for the bikes or what they’re utilizing them for.”
Like different merchants, Sabi has applied casual checks, asking for identification, noting suspicious bulk purchases, or refusing gross sales to unknown prospects arriving in teams. But, he admits, these measures are removed from foolproof.
Governments throughout the Sahel have responded with blunt devices, with at the least 43 bike bans having been recorded since 2012, in keeping with GI-TOC. But these sweeping restrictions typically damage civilians greater than armed fighters, reducing off rural communities from markets, clinics and colleges.
For merchants like Yahuza, the scenario presents an unattainable dilemma. With out his motorcycle, he can’t attain the distant farms the place farmers promote their produce. With it, he dangers being mistaken for the very criminals terrorising his neighborhood.
“It’s not nearly using any extra,” he mirrored. “It’s about what folks assume once they see you on it.”
This text is printed in collaboration with Egab.
