On August 27, 2024, hundreds of jihadists from the Front for the Victory of Islam and Muslims (known by the acronym JNIM) set out in a convoy from army bases in northern and eastern Burkina Faso, advancing on positions near the capital Ouagadougou. The attack lasted from 9:00 AM until 3:00 PM, without any backup arriving from the army or Burkinabe security forces.
The convoy, made up of an estimated 400 fighters from JNIM’s “Hanifa Brigade” targeted the outskirts of the town of Sanmatenga, near the city of Barsalogho, in the northern state of Kaya. Most of the fighters were riding motorcycles or four-wheel-drive vehicles, primarily Chinese cars that the Front had seized in previous attacks.
The Upshot
The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 210 military personnel and civilian army staff, while a further 30 people were killed and of 150 civilians wounded. The governor of Kaya State estimated that more than 400 people may have been wounded.
Sources close to the jihadist group told CASS that the attack aimed to forestall the construction of fortifications and trenches around the city of Barsalogho, where local authorities under army command had hired hundreds of people to help dig earthworks and prepare defenses. This had prompted JNIM to launch a pre-emptive strike, targeting both the barracks surrounding the city and on the military fortifications.
The Context
The latest attack came after about 20 days of surveillance and planning, during which the Hanifa Brigade had brought in four groups of fighters from the Djibo and Arbinda regions of Soum State to carry out the operation. Although this attack was the group’s most violent yet in terms of the number of civilians affected, the battalion had previously carried out several preliminary attacks in various locations over recent weeks.
Most notably, on August 9, fighters from the battalion ambushed a Burkinabe army column comprised of 150 military vehicles between Fada and Bougui in the eastern province of Fada N’gourma, killing at least 150 soldiers, destroying 100 military vehicles, capturing about 50 others and seizing dozens of rocket-propelled grenades, hundreds of Kalashnikovs and more than 400 boxes of ammunition.
Rapid attacks of this nature have become the standard operating model for JNIM and its newly created Hanifa Brigade, which has been extending its operations and attacks far and wide across both northeastern Burkina Faso and the southeast of the country.
JNIM has also laid siege to many towns, including key provincial centers in the northern and eastern provinces of Burkina Faso, focusing on targeting military supply convoys that attempt to break these sieges or provide supplies to the towns.
These attacks, and the ongoing sieges of several towns, add to the immense pressures on the transitional military council led by Ibrahim Traoré, which foiled a coup attempt in early June 2024 after his presidential guards exchanged fire near the presidential palace with a cell of officers and soldiers who had tried to storm the presidential palace. This prompted the council to request 100 fighters from the Wagner Group, based in Mali, to protect Traoré from parts of the army that could consider further coup attempts in the future.
JNIM and other jihadist groups, most notably the Islamic State group-affiliated Wilayat Sahel, have benefited from multiple coup attempts in Burkina Faso since 2022. The ruling junta has set up local militias to battle the jihadists, but many fighters and more than half of the contractors in these inexperienced groups have since withdrawn.
Yet despite the jihadist threat, the junta has sought to weaken the army, for fear that its senior commanders will consolidate enough power to consider their own coups against the Traoré regime.
Balancing Jihadist Attacks and Coup Attempts
During the first eight months of 2024, JNIM and IS in the Sahel carried out 100 attacks between them, mostly against security and military forces, compared to just 40 such operations over the same period in 2023. The same period saw six known coup attempts, compared to seven in 2023.
Burkina Faso’s military junta has prioritized stabilizing its transitional government over carrying out large-scale operations against jihadist groups. This has given greater leeway to these groups to carry out large-scale attacks of their own.
This can only prolong the instability ravaging Burkina Faso and provide jihadist groups with greater resources, helping them in their quest to take control of ever more territory.
