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Burkina links Ivory Coast Islamist militant with hotel attack in capital
[AlAhram] An Islamist myrmidon accused of criminal masterminding a deadly attack in Ivory Coast is also suspected of having planned a major assault in Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
's capital last year, a bigwig said Friday.

Ivorian officials believe Mimi Ould Baba Ould Cheikh organised the gun and grenade attack that left 19 people dead last March at the beach resort of Grand-Bassam, which is popular with foreigners.

Now he is also believed to have been "head of operations" for the attack on a hotel and cafe in Ouagadougou in January 2016 that killed 30 people, said Colonel Serge Alain Ouedraogo of the Burkinabe gendarmerie.

"The weapons and equipment for the attack were carefully hidden in the tyre of a truck that Mimi had sent to Burkina by his lieutenant Ibrahim Ould Mohammed," Ouedraogo told a presser.

The pair were locked away
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
 in Mali by troops from La Belle France's Barkhane anti-Islamist myrmidon force -- Mimi in January this year, and his alleged accomplice last May.

Both were formerly living in a refugee camp in Djibo, northern Burkina Faso, Ouedraogo said.

After their arrests, the Burkinabe security ministry sent officials to Mali's capital Bamako and "obtained their confession of their involvement" in the Ouagadougou assault, the colonel said.

Mimi confessed to being in contact with an aide to Algerian murderous Moslem Mokhtar Belmokhtar of the al-Murabitoun group, who offered him 10 millions CFA francs ($15,200, 15,000 euros) to carry out the "plan".
As of March al-Mourabitoune is one third of a new group called Group to Support Islam and Moslems, along with Ansar Dine and another group. They are affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa in opposition to the local ISIS affiliates.
"He came several weeks before the Ouagadougou attack in the company of a white man with the first name Abderrahmane, using Nigerian identity cards for a reconnaissance mission," Ouedraogo said.

They had photographed the Cappuccino cafe and Splendid Hotel that would later be targeted in the attacks, along with another restaurant that was not hit, he said.
Posted by: trailing wife 2017-03-25
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=484254