Designed to connect isolated communities, satellite internet is also helping armed groups communicate, coordinate and spread propaganda beyond the reach of local telecommunications networks. Governments now face a difficult question: how can they restrict militants’ access without cutting civilians off from the world?

Across thousands of kilometres of desert, an increasingly valuable piece of equipment carried by an armed group may be neither a rifle nor a drone, but a small white dish transported in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Starlink terminals connect users to a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites without relying on local mobile towers. For communities underserved by conventional telecommunications, that can provide an essential link to markets, public services and the outside world.

But the same connectivity also serves armed movements and criminal networks operating in those remote areas.

A May 2025 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, or GI-TOC, documented the use of Starlink by jihadist organisations, separatist movements and trafficking networks across the Sahel. Its findings describe a technology that improves field communications while creating new challenges for governments struggling to exercise authority over vast territories.

Remote no longer means disconnected

Armed groups in the Sahara have long relied on radios, satellite phones and human couriers. Starlink did not introduce satellite communications to the region, but it expanded the possibilities for internet access in places where conventional networks are absent or unreliable.

A terminal can provide connectivity to several users, allowing them to exchange messages, images and files through internet-based applications.

An isolated unit therefore no longer has to be disconnected from its leadership.

For armed organisations, this can shorten the time needed to exchange information, coordinate dispersed personnel and communicate developments from the field. It also reduces dependence on towns and other locations where mobile coverage is available.

These advantages should not be overstated. The available evidence does not establish that Starlink is behind every coordinated attack, or that all armed groups operate an integrated command-and-control system through the service. Better connectivity is not the same as comprehensive battlefield intelligence.

Nevertheless, the operational difference can be substantial where government forces also struggle with poor communications.

GI-TOC quoted a gendarme in Agadez describing how traffickers’ familiarity with the desert, combined with continuous connectivity, made their movements harder for the authorities to anticipate.

Fighting over the narrative

The significance of satellite internet extends beyond communication between fighters.

Images and statements are themselves instruments of conflict. A group able to publish footage quickly can attempt to shape public understanding before the authorities issue their account.

High-bandwidth connectivity makes it easier to transmit videos, photographs and statements from remote locations. It can support propaganda, claims of responsibility and displays of captured equipment without requiring material to be physically transported to a better-connected town.

Le Monde reported on the growing visibility of Starlink equipment in images involving armed groups. One example was footage released in June 2024 by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, showing a terminal among equipment reportedly captured during an operation against an Islamic State in the Sahel commander near Gao.

The distinction matters: equipment visible among captured items does not, by itself, establish precisely how the group publishing the footage uses it.

Nigerien security sources also told researchers that terminals had been seized during operations in Tillabéri and Tahoua. GI-TOC separately reported seizures associated with operations against Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, in the Lake Chad region.

Islamic State in the Sahel and ISWAP should not be treated as interchangeable organisations simply because both are affiliated with Islamic State.

Tinzaouaten: connectivity during combat

The technology is not confined to jihadist groups.

GI-TOC documented its use by Azawad separatist forces and the Malian armed forces. The report described satellite connectivity helping separatist fighters maintain communications and circulate information during the July 2024 battle near Tinzaouaten against Malian troops and Wagner personnel.

Some of those separatist factions subsequently joined the Azawad Liberation Front.

The broader lesson is that Starlink is not inherently the equipment of one side. Governments, insurgents, businesses and humanitarian organisations can all draw value from the same commercial infrastructure.

This reflects a wider transformation in irregular warfare: commercially available technologies can give non-state actors capabilities once far more difficult or expensive to obtain.

A cross-border market

Behind the terminals lies a regional supply chain.

GI-TOC’s research described devices entering Niger from Nigeria before Starlink’s official commercial launch in Niger in March 2025. Maradi, Zinder and Agadez featured as commercial and distribution centres, with supplies subsequently reaching other parts of Niger and neighbouring countries.

The report also identified flows originating in Libya and connections to markets in Mali and the Lake Chad basin.

These findings concern a documented period, not a complete, continuously updated map of the trade. Legal markets and regulatory conditions have changed, and the presence of a terminal does not automatically indicate smuggling or an armed affiliation.

The commercial relationship can also extend beyond the initial sale. Researchers found that some intermediaries retained control of subscription accounts and collected recurring payments from customers lacking access to conventional banking.

This makes the issue more than a customs problem. The identity of the purchaser, account holder, payer and eventual user may not be the same.

Subscription records do not always identify the user

International roaming arrangements helped make satellite connectivity available beyond the country where some equipment was purchased or registered.

Le Monde quoted the author of the GI-TOC report describing weaknesses in identity verification that trafficking networks had exploited, with some devices ultimately reaching jihadist users.

Such findings point to a gap between account registration and knowledge of the final customer. They do not establish that every roaming subscription is illicit, or that identical service conditions apply everywhere today.

For regulators, the challenge is to distinguish ordinary cross-border commerce from arrangements intended to conceal the end user.

Harder to monitor does not mean invisible

Starlink changes the surveillance problem; it does not eliminate the possibility of detection.

By bypassing local telecommunications operators, satellite internet reduces governments’ access to some familiar monitoring channels. Applications can add a separate layer of end-to-end encryption, protecting message content.

The connection provider and the messaging application therefore perform different roles. Satellite access should not be confused with the encryption provided by a particular app.

Nor does encrypted content make every aspect of a user’s activity untraceable. Physical equipment, account information and other forms of evidence can remain relevant.

The defensible conclusion is that satellite connectivity complicates certain forms of interception and investigation—not that it makes armed groups technically invisible.

Regulation or disconnection?

According to GI-TOC’s account of developments in March 2025, Niger and Chad moved towards authorising and regulating Starlink. A security official in Zinder told researchers that licensing could help authorities oversee a technology previously entering Niger outside effective controls.

The logic is straightforward: a prohibition that fails to stop supply can leave the state with less visibility while strengthening informal intermediaries.

Legalisation alone, however, does not resolve the problem of concealed users or diverted equipment.

Geographic restrictions present a different dilemma. Disabling connectivity across a conflict-affected area may hinder armed actors, but it can also interrupt communications for residents, traders, journalists and aid organisations.

A policy assessment must therefore consider both the security benefit and the civilian cost. Targeted action against substantiated misuse, accountable registration and lawful cooperation with providers may offer a more proportionate approach than blanket shutdowns.

That cooperation also requires safeguards against indiscriminate surveillance and restrictions imposed simply because communities live in contested territory.

The same connection, different purposes

Starlink’s role in the Sahel exposes the central dilemma of dual-use technology.

The connection that helps a trader reach a customer, a family contact relatives or a humanitarian organisation communicate during an emergency can also help an armed group coordinate and publicise its activities.

The white dish does not explain the region’s conflicts. Its impact depends on the surrounding conditions: weak infrastructure, uneven state presence, cross-border commerce and limited regulatory capacity.

What satellite internet has changed is the relationship between distance and isolation. A remote position can now remain connected.

For Sahel governments, the task is not simply to stop that connection. It is to prevent its misuse without making civilian isolation part of the security response.