For a long time, Burkina Faso had been praised for its stability, as the country was apparently spared from the dreadful consequences of the Libyan civil war in 2011. However, in recent years, and particularly after 2015, security concerns gained international attention and rapidly worsened. Issues linked to organized crime, religious extremism and guerrillas in the landlocked country have resurfaced in the last decade, fusing together social conflicts and international jihadist organizations from neighboring countries.
The regional context
Two major factors have contributed to a sudden increase in violence and instability in the Sahel region. First and foremost, the disintegration of the Libyan state in 2011 attracted and stirred up violent religious extremism in southern Algeria, Niger, Mali and Mauritania. Secondly, but no less importantly, the Malian civil war of 2012 and latent insecurity still play a massive role in catalyzing conflict. The multiplication of jihadist groups in Mali was already under way by 2010 and spilt over in Burkina Faso and other neighboring countries in 2015.
Mali’s situation is particularly key to understanding the instability of the region. The Tuareg rebellion in 2012 and the subsequent rise in power of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the northernmost provinces of Mali accelerated the collapse of the state and paved the way for the spread of religious extremism in the whole region. The inability of the Malian governments to deal with the rebellions led to multiple coup d’état, so much so that international analysts are now openly speaking of a collapsed state.
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Terrorists from AQIM have flooded into multiple regions of the countries, trafficking weapons, drugs and human beings. It is not a coincidence that most of the violent attacks in the Sahel stem from the so-called “three-border zone” – the area between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – where ethnic tension is stirred up by frustration and poverty. While today most of the security issues are traceable to religious extremism, most of the region’s jihadist groups have grown out of insurgent movements that are ethnically or regionally based.
The areas between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are particularly favorable to guerrillas, with dense forests and relatively no army control. Recently, violent attacks and kidnappings were carried out also in southern countries like Benin and Ivory Coast. These two countries are of great concern because, given their internal political instability, they offer fertile ground to hub terrorists.
Security issues in Burkina
While sporadic ambushes began in 2015, a series of attacks carried out in the capital Ouagadougou between 2016 and 2018 and claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb gained international attention. This is especially true for the provinces of Soum and Oudalan (part of the administrative region named “Sahel”) – despite international initiatives seeking to eradicate violent groups. Consequently, the threat expanded throughout the north of the country along its 1,325km border with Mali, encompassing even western provinces such as Kénédougou, Kossi and Yatenga.
The nature of armed groups in Burkina Faso is heterogeneous and challenging to pinpoint. It can span from farmers, ethnic minorities and bandits, to local warlords and jihadist organizations such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and – to a lesser extent – Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) and Boko Haram, both formally affiliated to the Islamic State (ISIS). This paints a complex picture, where different types of conflicts can occur at the same time and place and whose outlines are blurry and nuanced. While the roots can be traced back to Malian and regional conflicts, most analysts agree that there are endogenous dynamics at play, and hint at distress caused by extreme poverty and lack of economic development as the most prominent reasons for dissatisfaction. This was the case of a large number of uprisings in the western and central regions, which unfolded against the backdrop of community conflicts.
It is worth noting that the Burkinabe governments – just like other governments in the Sahel – were never absent from the peripheral territories but rather asserted their power and authority via neo-patrimonial systems that favored corruption, clientelism and ill resource management. In the northern provinces, the social contract between local populations and the central government was already broken when Islamist extremism arrived: social conflicts were already there before jihadism and terrorist organizations caught on.
Today, jihadist organizations operate in Burkina Faso with baffling ease and have more ambitious targets than ever before. The most worrisome aspect of this growth is the sudden change in targets: prior to 2018, attacks focused mostly on the military and on international staff; today, the main targets are civilians. Despite increasing counterterrorism operations in the Sahel, jihad extremism is proving more agile, producing catastrophic results such as a sevenfold rise in deaths in Burkina Faso between 2018 and 2019. AQIM successfully managed to integrate into preexisting trafficking networks, infiltrating the hinterlands of several countries, where government security forces are weak and borders are nearly non-existent. In the last three years alone, hundreds of victims died in terror attacks, some of which were carried out by child soldiers as young as 12 years old. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 1.4 million Burkinabe have been driven from their homes over the past two years.
Counterterrorism efforts
Various and weak governments have, over time, downplayed the threat, and were never keen on labelling them as “terrorist attacks”. Nevertheless, in response to the growing attacks in 2018, the government of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré declared a state of emergency in 14 of the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso. This measure concretely delivered extensive powers to military forces, including the establishment of curfews, limitations to personal freedom and warrants to search houses. The state of emergency has been prolonged several times since.
Humanitarian and non-governmental organizations have flagged a long series of violations of human rights in the provinces concerned by the state of the emergency. Abuses, summary executions and rapes have occurred in the name of counterterrorism and security politics, with the result of distancing even more the local population from the central government. As a consequence, national efforts to contain and mitigate terrorist attacks did not have the expected impact and in some cases even dampened international efforts. As a matter of fact, they spread violence and fear among civilians, making them less likely to collaborate and pushing them to sympathize with criminal and terrorist organizations. What is more, civilians blame central and regional governments for diminishing access to public services and economic restrictions, with more funds destined for counterterrorism and less for basic services for the population.
At the international level, the Burkinabe government also allocated national militias to missions abroad – both for multilateral alliance and for UN peacekeeping operations – notably to secure the most dangerous areas of Mali. Burkina Faso also partners with neighboring countries to improve security across the region; the country is, in fact, part of the G5 Sahel, a formal and cooperative alliance between Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad that also operates a joint military force. The G5 Sahel is backed by the international community and by international efforts to halt cross-country terrorism. In particular, it has received the support of the African Union, the United Nations Security Council, and, crucially, France and the United States, which also finance the joint military force. This is of great importance to the Burkinabe government since adequate training was deemed the single most improvable area for counterterrorism efforts – media reports even show that Burkina Faso forces outside the country were often better trained than domestic units.
In spite of committing over 5,000 of its own troops, France has thus far struggled to replicate the relative success in Mali’s counterterrorism operations. The former colonizer has maintained strong ties with the Burkinabe economy; in recent years, too loose (or too close) links with Paris have provoked the fall of governments.
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Despite a solid commitment, President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to reduce its military presence in the Sahel region, on the account of the results obtained by airstrikes. However, the success against jihadist targets has not brought about a reduction of violence, creating additional security challenges for the other peacekeeping missions that are set to stay in the Sahel. Because of this, additional chaos is to be expected when and if French troops will leave the country. Without political stability and social justice, it is easy to see a deterioration of the security situation following the departure of international forces.
While relatively unknown to the international public, the security situation in Burkina Faso is growing out of proportion. A far-reaching instability in the region, pervasive poverty, a lack of basic services, and modest means to fight violent extremism have brought about a complex scenario in which neither national nor international efforts seem to be able to protect civilians. With this grim scenario before us, the security challenge in Burkina Faso and in the whole Sahel is likely to worsen in the near future.