Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), also known as the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims, is a Salafi-Jihadist organization that formed in March 2017 when the Sahara branch of AQIM and Al Mourabitoun joined with Ansar Dine and the Macina Liberation Front (MLF). JNIM claims its aims are to incite Muslims to oppose oppression, expel occupying powers from the Sahel region and implement Islamic governance. The group announced its merger in a video in which JNIM’s new emir, Iyad Ag Ghali, appeared alongside leaders from the other constituent militant groups and pledged allegiance to the emirs of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al Qaeda (AQ), and the Taliban. The merger was allegedly in line with AQ’s doctrine of unity, as consolidation would allow the AQ affiliates to bring together resources and objectives to extend its area of operation. JNIM reportedly formalizes the previous collaboration among the constituent groups by establishing a hierarchical relationship in which AQIM oversees the allied militant groups. JNIM has targeted French forces, the UN Stabilization Mission, and local armies in the Sahel region. According to Vision of Humanity, JNIM is one of the deadliest and fastest-growing terrorist groups worldwide.

Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement or Houthis, is an Islamist armed movement operating in northern Yemen, rooted in Zaydi Shiite beliefs. The ideological predecessor to Ansar Allah, Believing Youth, formed in 1992. With the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the death of the Ansar Allah’s founder, Hussein al-Houthi, in 2004, the group militarized and pushed for a Zaydi governorate in Yemen. The organization’s goals are to overthrow the Yemeni government and gain regional autonomy for the Houthi tribe in northern Yemen.

Brothers Fabio and Manuel Vasquéz Castaño founded the ELN, a Marxist-Leninst group, in 1964 to defend Colombians whom they believed to be victims of social, political, and economic injustices perpetrated by the Colombian state. The Colombian military decimated the ELN in 1973; however, the group was able to rebuild from just 65 members. The ELN's involvement in the drug trade and kidnapping practices helped the group grow to over 4,000 members at its height in 1999. Though the ELN has been in steady decline since 2000, the group has remained involved in peace talks with the Colombian government from 2014 through to 2015.

Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH), also known as the Hezbollah Brigades, is a Shiite Iraqi insurgent group in Iraq and Syria that was founded in 2007. The group is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and receives large amounts of training, logistical support, and weapons from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). From 2007-2011, KH directed the majority of its attacks against U.S.-Coalition forces in Iraq and was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. on July 2, 2009. Following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, KH sent large numbers of its fighters to Syria to fight alongside Hezbollah and the Assad government. KH has also deployed its troops in Iraq to fight the Islamic State (IS) and is a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of Shiite militant groups fighting IS in Iraq.

The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), sometimes called the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM), is an Islamic separatist organization based in the southern Philippines. It seeks an independent Islamic state for the Filipino Muslim minority, known as the Moro people, who live primarily in the Philippines’ Mindanao region. The BIFF was founded in 2010 by Ameril Umbra Kato as a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). It has attacked government forces and civilian targets, especially to undermine peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is a Sunni terrorist organization and Al Qaeda (AQ) affiliate based in Yemen. Emerging from the 2009 merger of the Yemeni and Saudi Arabian branches of Al Qaeda, AQAP has claimed numerous attacks in Yemen and has also targeted Westerners at home and abroad. The group is known internationally for the "underwear bomber" who attempted to detonate a bomb on a Detroit-bound airplane in 2009 and for the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. AQAP is distinguished from other AQ branches as one of the more capable members of the global AQ network.