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Africa Subsaharan
14 soldiers killed by jihadists in Burkina Faso
2021-10-05
[AlAhram] At least 14 soldiers were killed and seven injured by bully boyz at the Yirgou military barracks 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 Sanmatenga province on Monday, the government said.

The soldiers were targeted at 5 a.m. by a large number of heavily gunnies and showed ``great combativeness,'' Minister of Defense Aime Barthelemy Simpore said in a statement.

The government immediately launched an aerial and ground offensive, he said.

Locals near the attack said they were shocked, given there had been an increased military presence in the area recently.

``We are totally devastated because of what happened,'' Abdoulaye Pafadnam, the mayor of nearby Barsalogho town, told the News Agency that Dare Not be Named by phone.

``Many defense and security forces were sent to cover the area, and it was very encouraging to see that. We did not think that such an attack would happen in our zone....But when 12 soldiers get killed and equipment is taken away, it creates a big fear,`' he said.

Violence linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group is increasing across the once peaceful West African country.

As of Saturday there were six explosives detonated within seven days killing eight people and wounding several others, according to a tweet by Menastream, a conflict monitoring consultancy.

While attacks had previously been concentrated in the north and east, they're expanding across the country. At least three of the explosives last week occurred in the west and southwest including the first deadly explosive in the Cascades region, according to Menastream.

Conflict analysts say the intensifying of attacks are due to some jihadist groups trying to consolidate gains before the rainy season ends, when violence typically increases and that the spike in explosives is a response to more Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s by the army, said Heni Nsaibia a senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

``One could assume that the explosives are both a response of choice to the airstrikes, and a way to deter movements by ground forces, in order to force them to become more static.'' he said.
Related:
Yirgou: 2019-01-03 13 killed in inter-communal violence in Burkina Faso
Related:
Burkina Faso: 2021-10-03 Two Burkina soldiers killed in blast near Ivory Coast
Burkina Faso: 2021-09-27 French soldier killed in Mali in clash with armed terrorist group
Burkina Faso: 2021-09-25 Chad plans to double army size to deal with security challenges
Related:
Sanmatenga province: 2019-10-23 Days of attacks in Burkina Faso kill at least 19 civilians
Posted by:trailing wife

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