Burkina Faso

Eight Jihadists Killed in Ivorian-Burkina Operation: Ivory Coast Army

Eight suspected jihadists were killed and another 38 captured in a joint operation by Burkinabe and Ivorian forces near the two countries’ shared border, the Ivory Coast army said Sunday. The captured men — 24 in Burkina Faso and 14 in Ivory Coast — were handed over to intelligence services, a source at Ivorian army headquarters told AFP. A “terrorist base” was destroyed at Alidougou in Burkina Faso, the source added. Arms, ammunition, USB keys, and cell phones were also seized during the operation, the source said. Operation “Comoe,” named after a river that flows through the two west African countries, was launched in early May, the source said, praising the “perfect coordination between the two armies.” This joint operation, presented on Saturday by the two armies’ top commanders as the first of its kind, took place northeast of the Ivorian town of Ferkessedougou and south of Banfora in Burkina Faso. On Saturday, a Burkinabe security source said the entire operation had been carried out in Ivory Coast. But local people told an AFP journalist that the fighting took place around the villages of Tinadalla and Diambeh north of Kong in the northeast of Ivory Coast. They spoke of a considerable military …

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Worried Togo Finds Itself on Front Line of Sahel’s Jihadist War

In a makeshift bunker of sacks of rice beneath a tree, heavily-armed Togolese soldiers keep watch over villagers coming and going on foot or bike across the border with Burkina Faso. Just a dried-out river bed separates the two West African countries. In surrounding fields, peasant farmers are bent silhouettes, watering the sorghum and maize seeds sown before the arrival of the first rains. Soon, clouds will chase away the fine dust of the harmattan, the desert wind that each year sweeps off the Sahara southwards to the coast and chokes the air. Nothing dramatic, or so it would seem, ever happens at Yemboate, in Togo’s far north. Yet less than 30 kilometers (19 miles) away, over the border in eastern Burkina Faso, jihadists and militia groups have imposed their own brutal law. Those policemen, doctors, and teachers who have not fled are being hunted down and butchered. “When I was small, we spent our time swimming in the river,” says farmer Abdoulaye Mossi, leaning on his bike with a hoe, speaking to AFP before the coronavirus pandemic. The arid channel separates his peaceful village of cob huts from a Burkinabe village on the other side. “Fear rules today,” the farmer says. But fear does …

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Two Soldiers, Five Volunteers Killed in Burkina Attack

Two Burkina Faso soldiers and five civilian defense volunteers have been killed during an ambush on a military patrol in the restive north of the country, security sources said Tuesday. The attack occurred on Monday as soldiers from the military detachment in Banh in Loroum province were carrying out a patrol in the area, the sources said. “Two soldiers were killed along with five civilians,” a security source told AFP. Another security source said the civilian casualties were “defense volunteers who were with the military unit during the patrol,” adding two soldiers also died. The source said four others in the patrol were wounded, without giving further details. Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist alliance GSIM claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming to have killed “nine soldiers” in an ambush and taken weapons and vehicles, in a text sent to AFP late Tuesday. The Mali-based GSIM (Group to Support Islam and Muslims) comprises several different jihadist groups in the Sahel. On May 11, jihadists killed eight Burkinabe soldiers during an attack close to the Niger border in Yagha province, security sources said at the time. Burkina Faso is part of a regional effort to battle an Islamist insurgency, along with neighboring Mali and Niger, Mauritania and Chad. However, …

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Burkina Faso security forces accused of executing 31 detainees in Djibo

Burkina Faso's security forces allegedly executed 31 unarmed detainees in the northern town of Djibo, Human Rights Watch said

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UN Mali peacekeepers find Canadian and Italian kidnapped in Burkina Faso in 2018

A Canadian woman and her Italian partner kidnapped in Burkina Faso in 2018 were found alive in the northwest of Mali by UN Minusma peacekeepers

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AFRICOM shifts strategy from degrading to containing West Africa insurgents, OIG report says

United States Africa Command has shifted its strategy from degrading violent extremist organizations in West Africa to simply containing their spread

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French operations in Mali put 30 militants ‘out of action,’ as Barkhane builds Sahel Coalition coordination

French military operations against Islamic State and al-Qaeda groups in Mali put 30 militants "out of action" as Barkhane builds Sahel Coalition mechanisms

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France boosts Barkhane force to 5,100 troops to further focus on Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger tri-border area

France is to boost the number of troops deployed to its Operation Barkhane counter-terrorism mission in the Sahel to 5,100

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Esper: Europe should ‘offset’ changes in US support for France’s West Africa mission

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Europe could 'offset any changes' in future support for France's counter-terror mission in Africa's Sahel region

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Sahel: France to further strengthen Barkhane, Takuba ‘fully operational by autumn’

France will further bolster its Operation Barkhane force in the Sahel, and the new Task Force Takuba will deploy in the summer, Lecointre says

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