Burkina Faso in the eye of the jihadist cyclone

On February 29, an armed group attacked the city of Sebba, in the Burkinabè administrative region of the Sahel, killing ten policemen. Despite the absence of explicit claims, the modality and the place of the assault suggest that it is another episode of jihadist violence in the country.

In fact, since 2015, Burkina Faso has experienced an exponential growth of proselytism and terrorist activities. This increase was facilitated by the proximity of the jihadist fronts in Mali and Niger as well as by the precariousness of the national economic and political situation. The victims of jihadist attacks across the country dramatically increased from 80 in 2016, to 1800 in 2019. Most of these actions were carried out by the Qaedist movement Group of Support for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) through its local branch of Ansarul Islam. However, in 2019 there was a significant increase in the raids made by the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara (ISGS).

In Burkina, Ansarul Islam and ISGS share the same operational area, the Sahel region, and their main recruitment and support basin comes from the semi-nomadic population of the Fulani ethnic group. The Fulani are a majority in the northern areas of the country, but a minority in absolute terms (8,4%) in the rest of Burkina Faso. The systematic exclusion of the Fulani from the political, economic and social life of the country has favoured the growth of discontent among the semi-nomadic population. Exactly on this disappointment the jihadist militias built their narrative and propaganda made of ethnic, political, economic and religious claims. The exploitation of ethnic divisions and the condemnation of current forms of governance of soil resources are the basis of consensus of both Ansarul Islam and ISGS. Although, the two armed groups belong to two different jihadist fronts, in Burkina Faso they cooperate and carry out joint attacks. However, it is not clear if this synergy is the result of a choice of the top management or an almost spontaneous hybridization, deriving from the ethnic and family ties between the militiamen.

In 2019, the number of attacks claimed by Ansarul Islam was more than halved compared to 2018, while ISGS operations have increased. This phenomenon might be explained as the progressive transfer of militiamen from Ansarul Islam to the ISGS due to three elements: the greater symbolic and propaganda appeal of the Caliphate, the resources available to Daesh and, above all, the strong investment that the organization led by al-Saharoui has made on the radicalization of the Fulani. Although the GSIM networks were the first ones to engage the Fulani minority in Mali and Burkina Faso, the Qaedist movement appears to be more oriented towards the co-optation of the Tuareg, rivals of the Fulani in many areas south of the Malian region of Kidal.

Moreover, the increase in capacity of the Burkinabe jihadist movements is of particular concern as it testifies the role played by the trainers of the Caliphate and, above all, the impact of the almost 10 years of armed struggle in the Sahel. For example, from the recent attacks in Sebba or in the village of Silgadji (25 January) some important elements emerged about the sophistication of the jihadists’ action. The attack of Silgadij was not a simple raid, but a highly coordinated operation. Before the attack, in fact, the jihadist isolated telephone communication systems and blocked the access to the city with mines, thus preventing the arrival of the Armed Forces. Then, the population was assembled in the market and divided between men and women. After this phase, women were released, while men were killed. Later, on February 6, the Islamic State, through Naba n.220, the Caliph’s weekly newsletter, claimed the attack.

Despite its complexity, Silgadji’s attack involved a small village without any military defence. On the contrary, Sebba is a provincial capital with 30,000 inhabitants and both police and military forces. The jihadists’ raid began between six and seven in the morning, after having interrupted the city’s telecommunication systems and having deployed some armed men to guard the main entrances. After that, the militiamen made a simultaneous assault on the Police station and the detachment of the 11th Army Infantry Regiment. According to police statements, the jihadists stole equipment, weapons and an armoured vehicle, demonstrating that the Police station was probably the real target of the operation, while the attack on the military detachment could have been a diversion. Furthermore, according to some witnesses, the militiamen wore the uniforms of the Burkinabè Army. This detail is not secondary, both for the operational importance of this choice, which facilitated the penetration of the jihadists into the city, and because this tactic was often used by other militias in the region such as Boko Haram, officially affiliated to the Caliphate as the Islamic State West African Province.

Therefore, the temporal proximity and the operational similitude between the two attacks might suggest the existence of a consequential relationship between the two assaults. The attack to the village of Silgadji might have been a test for the more risky attack to the city of Sebba. In addition, the operational techniques employed in both attacks (disruption of telecommunications, creation of a garrison and checkpoints and the use of Army uniforms) seem to be very similar to the assault modalities of Boko Haram. Moreover, in the recent months, some attacks carried out by the ISGS were claimed by the Islamic State media as Boko Haram operations. This reinforces the hypothesis of a growing collaboration between the two fronts of the Islamic State. With this in mind and in the light of the operating techniques employed, the jihadists of the Islamic State operating in Burkina Faso seem to benefit of a greater training contribution from abroad, in particular by Boko Haram.

For these reasons, Burkinabe jihadism seems to have reached a new capacitive level favoured by the overlapping of two dynamics: one internal, that is the migration of Ansarul Islam militiamen to the Islamic State; and an external one, that is the growing collaboration between ISGS and Boko Haram, which has produced a greater sophistication of assault techniques. These dynamics must be carefully considered by the (local and non-local) security forces operating in the Sahel, especially for the launch of new military operations, such as the European international mission Takuba, which will also involve Italian contributions.