Jihadist group claims deadly twin attacks in Burkina Faso
One shot dead in night assault near Burkina presidency
OUAGADOUGOU: One person was shot dead after three people attempted to storm a roadblock near the Burkinabe presidential compound yesterday, a government source said. Two of the trio managed to flee the scene but the third was arrested and gunned down after attempting to seize the weapon of a guard, the source said. The incident in the early hours came two days after eight soldiers were killed in deadly twin attacks on the French embassy and the Burkinabe military HQ in the capital Ouagadougou.
Meanwhile, a jihadist group allied to Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a deadly co-ordinated assault on the French embassy in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadoudou, and the country’s military HQ, condemned by the prime minister as a “cowardly” terrorist attack. Eight armed forces personnel were killed in the fighting in the West African nation on Friday, the government said, while a French security source said 12 more were seriously injured.
Eight attackers were also killed and 80 people, including civilians, were wounded, officials said. The government said the attack on the military HQ was a suicide car bombing and that a regional anti-terrorism meeting may have been the intended target. Visiting the HQ on Saturday, Prime Minister Paul Kaba Thieba said he saw “apocalyptic scenes” and condemned “with the utmost severity this terrorist attack, cowardly, which attacks our country, once again, which sows death, unnecessary destruction”.
The Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) claimed to have carried out the twin attacks, in a message
3 attempt to storm a roadblock near presidential compound
cited by Mauritania’s Al-Akhbar news agency. Led by the Malian jihadist Iyad Ag Ghaly, the group is allied to AlQaeda and has claimed responsibility for previous attacks in the troubled Sahel region. GSIM said the Ouagadoudou attacks were a response to the deaths of some of its leaders “in a French army raid in northern Mali two weeks ago,” the agency reported. According to French military sources, some 20 jihadists were “killed or captured” on that occasion.
‘Terror attack’
Authorities on Saturday began to gather clues at the two attack sites. The car bomb explosion left a huge crater in the pavement by the military HQ and a hole in the side of the building, with windows smashed and bullet holes in the walls. “This is a terrorist attack, linked to a current or another terrorist movement in the Sahel... or to others who want to are destabilize or block our democratic progress,” said communication minister Remis Fulgance Dandjinou on Saturday morning.
Two people were arrested near the military HQ, a security source said. “It was a panic yesterday (Friday). People were running around in the city, trying to get home. Shops were closing, schools too,” said Sayouba Ouedraogo, a 36-yearold driver. A salesman who usually sells cigarettes in front of the French Embassy, Zondi Mahamadi, 52, said it was chaos: “People ran, they left everything, even motorcycles, bikes, we climbed a fence to get away.” “Does religion command people to kill? Religion has never said that,” he added.
Soft targets to hard targets
The violence began mid-morning Friday when heavy gunfire broke out in the centre of the Burkinabe capital. Witnesses said five men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles got out of a car and opened fire on passersby before heading towards the French embassy. They were “dressed in civilian clothes” with their faces uncovered, witnesses said. At the same time, the bomb went off near the headquarters of the Burkinabe armed forces, about a kilometer from the site of the first attack. A gunman who attacked the military HQ was wearing the uniform of the national army, according to a security source. Officials from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger had gathered at the HQ for a G5 Sahel meeting, an anti-jihadist group which aims to train 5,000 troops and be fully operational by the end of the month. —Agencies