[IsraelTimes] Suspected jihadists massacred at least 160 civilians, including around 20 children, in a village 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 volatile north, the deadliest attack since Islamist violence erupted like lava from a volcano in the West African country in 2015, local officials said Sunday.
The slaughter in the early hours of Saturday followed the slaying of 14 people late Friday in the village of Tadaryat in the same region where jihadists linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State
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 ...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....
have been targeting civilians and soldiers.
In Solhan, in the region near the borders of Mali and Niger, local sources said they have recovered a total of 160 bodies from three mass graves.
"It’s the local people themselves who have started exhuming the bodies and burying them after transporting them," one local source said.
An earlier toll from local sources had put the dead at 138, while a government toll stood at 132 dead and around 40 maimed as of late Saturday.
In Solhan, a local official said the "situation is still volatile... despite the announcement of military operations," adding that residents were fleeing to the nearby towns of Sebba and Dori.
"Many people lost everything after their homes and belongings were torched," he said.
The assailants struck around 2:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) against a position of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Motherland (VDP), an anti-jihadist civilian defence force which backs the national army, before attacking homes and carrying out "executions," a local source said.
The VDP was set up in December 2019 to help Burkina’s poorly equipped military fight jihadists, but it has suffered more than 200 fatalities, according to an AFP tally. The volunteers are given two weeks’ military training before working alongside the security forces, typically carrying out surveillance, information-gathering or escort duties.
The government said Saturday that the defense and security forces were working "to neutralize these gunnies and restore calm to populated areas." A security forces official said that men were deployed to secure populated areas and to remove and bury bodies.
Solhan, a small community around 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from Sebba, the main city in Yagha province, has suffered numerous attacks in recent years.
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has struggled to fight back against increasingly frequent and deadly jihadist attacks from groups, including the Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM)
| ...the English name for the regional Al Qaeda linked jihadi group. In Arabic it’s Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional Al Qaeda in North Africa affiliate. Organizationally they reported to Abdelmalik Droukdel’s group, which once upon a time was the Algerian jihadi group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Whether they still do, given he was killed by the French last year, is an interesting question. ... |
and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara
...he succulent fruit of the union of splinter factions from Mokhtar Bekmokhtar'sal-Mourabitunes and MUJAO. Once the dust had settled and the smell of gunsmoke had dissipated, they became the Islamic State in Mali, then adopted their present clever name. They are headed by Adnan Abu Walid Saharaoui. It operates along the borders of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali...
(EIGS).
The attacks first started in the north near the Mali border, but have since spread to other regions, particularly in the east.
Around 1,400 people have died and more than a million have fled their homes. 
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