[AlAhram] At least four Burkinabe soldiers were killed Monday when button men raided a military base in the north, security sources said, a day after 10 people died in a separate attack in the same region.The pre-dawn attack saw heavily-armed button men ambush a base in Nassoumbou in Soum province, which flanks the Malian border, with one security source saying they used rockets.
"Heavily-armed and unidentified individuals attacked the GFSN military base in Nassoumbou at around 4:00 am. Four members of the defence and security forces were killed and four others were maimed," a security source told AFP.
The GFSN is a military force which is engaged in anti-terror operations 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 restive north.
"The attackers... arrived on cycle of violence
s and also fired rockets at the base" which caught fire, a second security source told AFP, saying they fled towards the Malian border, which lies just 30 kilometres (18 miles) away.The Burkinabe army immediately requested backup from Barkhane, La Belle France's regional anti-jihadist force, which deployed a Mirage fighter jet from Niger and a Tiger attack helicopter from Mali, a diplomatic source said.
The aerial support was confirmed by the French armed forces, with a Burkinabe security source saying it had allowed their troops to hunt down and kill an unspecified number of the attackers.
The Nassoumbou base has been targeted a number of times with the worst attack in December 2016 when button men killed at least 12 soldiers.
Monday's attack came just 36 hours after suspected jihadists raided Sikire, a village about 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the east, killing 10 people when they opened fire on local residents.
And on January 11, button men attacked Gasseliki, another village in the area, where they opened fire on a market in broad daylight, killing 12 locals.
Jihadist attacks began in northern Burkina Faso in 2015 but then spread to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin.
The country is one of the poorest nations in the world and part of the vast Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
which is struggling with a bloody insurgency by Islamist murderous Moslems.
The region turned into a hotbed of violent extremism and lawlessness after chaos engulfed Libya in 2011, followed by an Islamist insurgency in northern Mali.
Most attacks in Burkina have been attributed to Ansarul Islam, a jihadist group which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016, and to the JNIM (the Group to Support Islam and Moslems), which has sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Gunmen attack market in northern Burkina Faso, 10 killed
[IsraelTimes] 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 security minister says nearly a dozen button men opened fire on civilians at a Sunday market yesterday in the Soum province, killing at least 10 people.
Ousseni Compaore says two others were maimed in the attack on Sikire in the northern Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
that took place in the middle of the day while the market was full. He says investigations into the attack are ongoing.
Islamic Lions of Islam have increased attacks in the Sahel region, forcing Burkina Faso to declare a state of emergency there.
The jihadist threat has also shifted from the northern Sahel region, home to radicalized local preacher Ibrahim Malam Dicko, into the forested east near the border with Niger.
Burkina Faso is part of a five-nation regional counter-terror force, the G5 Sahel, launched in 2017.