The shadow constellation: how Starlink devices are shaping conflict and crime in the Sahel.

Violent extremist groups in the Sahel, including Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), are exploiting Starlink to enhance their operational capabilities. Criminal actors are not only trafficking Starlink devices but using them to evade law enforcement and sustain illicit economies. Their ability to do so is underpinned by an illicit supply chain that allows them to obtain Starlink devices and bypass nascent regulations on their use.

Starlink, a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites, launched its first 60 satellites in 2019. By March 2025, it had more than 7 100 in orbit.¹ It has been celebrated as a solution to help bridge the global digital divide. This could be particularly valuable in parts of rural Africa where factors such as conflict, limited private investment and tenuous state control continue to constrain internet connectivity.

Starlink kits consist of small, portable components: a dish, a power supply, cables, a base and a Wi-Fi router. They allow users to connect to satellite internet, eliminating the need for local telecommunication infrastructure. However, the technology also offers new opportunities to armed groups and criminal networks, exacerbating security challenges.

Technological innovation has always faced early exploitation by criminal interests or violent actors, and Starlink is no exception. Non-state conflict actors and criminal networks operating in areas where regular mobile networks are unavailable or unreliable are increasingly using Starlink to evade detection. The technology facilitates real-time coordination and can be used to disseminate public messaging.² Government forces report that the growing use of Starlink for secure communications makes it harder to intercept the plans of armed groups.³

The growing availability of Starlink is reshaping the landscape of conflict and crime in the Sahel. Deeper knowledge of traffickers’ methods and routes will aid understanding of the implications of increased connectivity for conflict dynamics.

The legalization of Starlink

The central Sahel remains the global epicentre of terrorism, accounting for 51% of global deaths caused by terrorism in 2024. After its 2023 coup, Niger experienced a 94% increase in extremist violence in 2024 — the most dramatic surge worldwide. Although the violence was concentrated in the north of the country, there are signs that it is spreading.⁴ There is reason to believe that Starlink technology is playing an important role in these groups’ operations.

In March 2025, Niger and Chad legalized Starlink in an effort to better regulate the technology by requiring devices to be registered.⁵ Mali is considering a similar move.⁶ For some consumers, legalization may diminish the need for smuggling. But illicit supply routes are likely to continue underpinning supply to armed groups and criminal networks wanting to evade regulatory oversight.

Legalization of Starlink represented a milestone in Niger’s efforts to improve digital connectivity. Download speeds of up to 200 megabits per second (Mbps) at a monthly cost of FCFA24 000–FCFA25 000 (about €37) have significantly improved connectivity.⁷ By comparison, Niger Telecoms, the state-owned telecommunications provider, offers a 2 Mbps broadband plan for FCFA55 157 (€84).⁸

The official rationale for granting the licence focused on connectivity. However, security concerns within the military government also influenced the decision. With Starlink kits being smuggled into Niger from Nigeria, where the service was already operational,⁹ a security officer in Zinder said: ‘The [licensing] of Starlink will also help us better regulate the use of this technology, which until now has been entering the country in an uncontrolled manner.’¹⁰

Starlink’s application for legalization in Niger had been pending since 2021. While permission to operate was nominally granted in 2024, discussions over technicalities delayed the launch and fuelled the expansion of the illicit market.¹¹ Many Nigeriens subscribed to Starlink through Nigeria before its legalization.¹²

How smugglers traffic Starlink kits

Factors that make Starlink kits easy to traffic include their portability, border officials’ lack of understanding about what they are, and widespread corruption. A trafficker in Maradi explained: ‘It’s easy to move the kits. You just pay the drivers and the police a little money and they let you pass without any problems. Everyone knows how it works.’¹³ After legalization, customs officers continued to seize Starlink kits as no official instructions had been issued to allow their legal entry. A customs officer in Zinder said: ‘We haven’t been told anything about these devices being authorized. For now, we treat them like any other smuggled goods and seize them when we find them.’¹⁴

A customs officer in Aderbissinat, a town in central Niger on the road south from Agadez, said that smugglers exploit law enforcement’s limited familiarity with Starlink technology: ‘By the time we understood their true nature, hundreds had already been smuggled through.’¹⁵ To evade detection, kits are frequently broken up into components, concealed, or intermingled with legitimate goods such as agricultural products. A customs officer in Diffa said: ‘By the time we intercept one kit, 10 others have already crossed.’¹⁶

Smuggling networks are also adaptable. A police officer who had been based in the south-eastern town of Mainé-Soroa noted: ‘Like any other trafficking network, increased patrols on one route will result in a relocation to another.’¹⁷ These activities are typically conducted after hours, utilizing bypass roads, unpaved pistes and motorbikes rather than cars. In the words of a trafficker from Agadez: ‘We bend like the wind — routes change but the goods flow.’¹⁸

Traffickers charge FCFA260 000–FCFA400 000 (€396–€609) to smuggle each kit. The fee includes bribes to law enforcement officials, which typically amount to FCFA20 000–FCFA30 000 (€30–€45). The trafficking networks also profit from subscription fees, charging end-users FCFA50 000–FCFA75 000 (€75–€120) a month, more than twice the actual cost in Niger.¹⁹ Traffickers retain control over customer accounts, using intermediaries to collect payments from clients, many of whom do not have bank accounts. Traffickers therefore exploit Niger’s low banking penetration to retain a sustained flow of illicit income.²⁰

Starlink devices are trafficked on Niger’s established southern, eastern and northern smuggling corridors, which connect key hubs such as Agadez, Maradi and Zinder to armed groups and criminal networks across the Sahel. Kits are imported from Nigeria through the southern cities of Maradi and Zinder towards major urban hubs, including the capital, Niamey, and Agadez. There is also a southwards flow of kits from Libya.²¹

From Agadez, kits are transported to Arlit in northern Niger or Tinzaouaten on northern Mali’s Algerian border, an area controlled by armed and violent extremist groups including JNIM and ISWAP. From Niamey, kits are distributed through established smuggling networks to Mali’s Ménaka and Gao regions, where they are sold.²²

Figure 1 Trafficking routes for Starlink devices.

Source: Interviews with Starlink dealers, Maradi, Zinder and Agadez, February 2025

The southern corridor feeds Starlink kits into Niger from northern Nigerian cities including Kano and Maiduguri. Maradi and Zinder are pivotal storage and distribution hubs on this corridor. Kits are often stored in warehouses or residential compounds before being sent to their destinations, which include the bandit enclaves of Tillabéri, violent extremist strongholds in Tahoua, or through Niamey to other regions under armed group influence, including Ménaka (IS Sahel) and Gao (Katibat Macina, a jihadist group aligned with JNIM).²³

The eastern corridor stretches from Zinder or Maiduguri through the border city of Diffa to Chad. The nomadic traders and boatmen who ferry Starlink kits across the porous Chad border form a pivotal lifeline supplying Starlink kits and other commodities to armed groups in the Lake Chad basin, including Chadian militias and ISWAP.²⁴

The northern corridor originates in south-western Libya, where Tuareg and Tebu networks dominate smuggling operations. Starlink devices are ferried across Libya’s southern border into Niger, passing through desert outposts such as Djado and Dirkou before reaching Agadez. This long-standing smuggling hub is an important staging ground where caches are consolidated and dispersed.²⁵

How extremists and criminals use Starlink

Starlink enhances the capabilities of criminal networks. Indeed, traffickers are enabled by the same Starlink kits that they smuggle. A trafficker in the Agadez region explained the appeal: ‘Starlink has simplified communication. It is much more practical and affordable than Thuraya satellite phones. Previously, it was difficult to contact someone in town with Thuraya, but now it’s easy to call or message anyone through WhatsApp.’²⁶ A gendarme in Agadez observed that Starlink was helping traffickers evade detection: ‘They know the desert better than we do, and with Starlink they’re always connected. It’s like they’re playing a game where they can see all the moves and we’re left guessing.’²⁷

Starlink is also having a significant impact on conflict dynamics. Since 2023, northern Mali has experienced a resurgence of violent conflict pitting the Malian army, supported by Russian Wagner Group (now coming under the control of Russia’s Africa Corps) auxiliaries, against the Cadre stratégique permanent (the Strategic Framework for the Defence of the People of Azawad, now disbanded), driving a surge in civilian casualties. Part of the Cadre stratégique permanent became the Front de Libération de l’Azawad (FLA), a coalition of separatist rebel groups. The FLA has used Starlink extensively, as have the Malian armed forces (FAMa).²⁸ According to an FLA leader in the Tinzaouaten area, the coalition relies on Starlink to coordinate operations, share intelligence and communicate its narrative. In the three-day battle at Tinzaouaten in late July 2024, during intense clashes with FAMa and Wagner mercenaries, the FLA used Starlink to maintain secure communication across its dispersed units and disseminate updates on social media, amplifying external messaging efforts.²⁹

A Starlink device being used by Azawad separatists in the desert in Mali.

Photo: Screengrab from Telegram

This phenomenon is not limited to separatist groups. Videos frequently circulating on social networks depict violent extremist groups using Starlink kits. For example, in June 2024, JNIM released a video claiming responsibility for an operation in Fitili, Gao, against Abdul Aziz Maza, a commander of IS Sahel. The footage prominently displayed a Starlink kit among the items recovered by JNIM.³⁰ Similarly, Nigerien security forces report that Starlink devices have been confiscated during operations against JNIM and IS Sahel in regions such as Tillabéri and Tahoua.³¹

This use of Starlink by armed groups and violent extremists extends further than the central Sahel. ISWAP, predominantly active in Nigeria, northern Cameroon and the Diffa region of Niger, has been a long-standing user of satellite technology for connectivity. Previously, it relied on Thuraya plug-and-play Wi-Fi routers.³² According to a source close to the Multinational Joint Task Force, established in 2014 to combat ISWAP and other violent extremist groups in the Lake Chad Basin, numerous Starlink devices were seized during operations against ISWAP in 2024 and 2025.³³

Many of the armed groups operating across the Sahel and West Africa are believed to rely on Starlink devices. A leader of the Union des Nigériens pour la Vigilance et le Patriotisme (Union of Nigeriens for Vigilance and Patriotism — UNVP), a support group for the Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland), made up of residents and former rebels from the Agadez region, noted: ‘These days, every suspicious vehicle seems to carry one of these Starlink devices. The armed groups near Emi Lulu, the militias Haftar [Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces] pushed out who are now hiding along the Niger border — they all rely on these devices to stay connected and coordinate their movements.’³⁴

A murky outlook

The proliferation of Starlink devices in Niger and the wider Sahel highlights how digital innovation is reshaping conflict and criminal dynamics in regions historically underserved by technology and with poor connectivity. While Starlink plays an important role in boosting connectivity for licit trade in remote regions, it has also become a tool used by armed groups and criminal networks, enabling better real-time communication during operations and posing further obstacles to responses.

Legalization of Starlink kits across the Sahel may help to mitigate some aspects of their use by illicit actors, but trafficking appears likely to continue. Legalization of Starlink may bring its own complications, since the company will be bound by national laws on the technology’s use and may have to comply with state demands to restrict connectivity. Measures such as denying Starlink connectivity to certain areas (known as ring-fencing) may temporarily inhibit armed group connectivity but will come at the price of engendering civilian resentment and denying large areas the benefits of new connectivity.

Geopolitical factors and the close relationship between Starlink’s part-owner, Elon Musk, and US President Donald Trump may also shape Starlink’s rollout. In Ukraine, shifts in the US position away from Kyiv have been reflected by worsening Starlink connectivity and a ban on the use of devices in offensive action against Russia, with significant implications for conflict dynamics.³⁵ The growing reliance of armed groups on Starlink devices could give the US unexpected leverage in Sahelian conflict dynamics, although this may decrease if private sector rivals introduce competing products.

Notes