Motorbike gunmen, shoot 18 dead at Burkina Faso eatery

ADDIS ABABA: Gunmen riding motorcycles roared up to a Turkish restaurant in the capital of the west African state of Burkina Faso and opened fire, killing 18 people in a stand-off with security forces that lasted into the early hours of yesterday morning.

Communications Minister Remi Dandjinou told reporters that security forces had killed two of the gunmen and were now searching the neighbourhood for any others, adding that at least 20 other people were injured in the attack on the Aziz Istanbul restaurant.

Gunmen from the North Africa branch of al-Qaeda attacked a hotel and coffee shop on the same busy avenue in the capital, Ouagadougou, in January last year, killing at least two dozen people.

Al-Qaeda’s North African branch, in alliance with local extremist groups, has been aiming to spread its attacks beyond its base in the Sahara desert, with assaults on a beach resort in the Ivory Coast in March last year and on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako in November 2015.

The group is under heavy pressure from a French-led coalition of forces that is hunting it in the militants’ desert strongholds, killing a number of its commanders.

French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that France would remain committed to working with countries in the region “in the fight against terrorist groups”.

Burkina Faso has largely been spared the terrorist attacks taking place elsewhere in the Sahel region. President Roch Kabore condemned the attack and praised security forces for their prompt response. – Washington Post