ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — African leaders have decided to work on deploying 3,000 troops to West Africa’s troubled Sahel region as extremist attacks surge, an AU official said Thursday.

The new force would be a significant new player in the sprawling, arid region south of the Sahara Desert where fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group killed thousands of people last year — at times working together in an unprecedented move.

Smail Chergui, the African Union commissioner for peace and security, relayed the troop decision taken at the recent African Union summit during Thursday’s meeting with visiting European Union officials.

The AU continental body is expected to work with the West African regional counterterror force G5 Sahel as well as the West African regional body ECOWAS, which has formed peacekeeping units in the past, Chergui said.

ECOWAS in September announced what Chergui called a “very bold” plan to counter extremism in the region, including mobilizing up to $1 billion through 2024.

“As you see and recognize yourself, the threat is expanding and becoming more complex,” Chergui said. “Terrorists are now even bringing a new modus operandi from Afghanistan and al-Shabab” in Somalia.

It was not immediately clear what the next steps would be in forming the AU force for the Sahel, which has become the most active region in Africa for extremist attacks.