“The objective was to seek out terrorists in their refuge areas”, indicates the general staff of the French army, which considers the results “very, very good”. Sixty jihadists were killed in northern Burkina Faso during an operation led by Burkinabè forces, assisted by French units from Operation Barkhane, the French army general staff announced on Sunday.
“On four occasions, between January 16 and 23, 2022, different groups of terrorists were located, identified and neutralized by Burkinabè forces and by Barkhane units”, details the staff.
Burkinabe forces return to jihadist land
Twenty motorcycles and several armed pick-ups were also destroyed in these operations punctuated by “air strikes by the Barkhane force, guided by Burkinabè units”, explains the general staff of the armies in a press release.
“We are continuing the fight against terrorists in coordination with our partners, the Burkinabè armed forces, which carried out these operations” with a “very positive” outcome, we continued.
According to the army, the Burkinabè forces will thus be able to “return” to these “transit and refuge areas” for jihadist groups in which “they had not operated for a long time”.
Just before the military coup
These military successes came just before a military coup on January 24, during which President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was placed under house arrest and other officials arrested.
On Thursday evening, in his first speech since taking power on Monday, Burkina’s new strongman, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, declared on national television that his country needed its partners “more than ever”. .
Saying that he understood the “legitimate doubts” aroused by the coup d’etat, he assured that Burkina “(would continue) to respect international commitments, in particular with regard to respect for human rights”, and specified that the he independence of justice would also be “assured”.
A country plagued by security deterioration since 2015
The population criticized Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in particular for not having succeeded in stemming the deterioration in security since 2015, particularly in the north and east of the country.
In the wake of Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso is caught in a spiral of violence attributed to armed jihadist groups, affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, which have killed more than 2,000 people and forced at least 1, 5 million people to flee their homes.