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A jihadist attack on a military post killed at least 14 soldiers in northern Burkina Faso, which has seen a flare-up in violence in recent weeks, security officials told AFP on Tuesday.
Al-Qaeda’s branch in the Sahel, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), claimed responsibility for the attack in Bagade on Saturday.
Burkina Faso, which has been ruled by a military junta since a coup d’etat in 2022, has endured deadly attacks by jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group for more than a decade, particularly in the north.
After a relative lull in the West African country, the attacks have resumed recently.
One security official, who asked not to be named, gave a “provisional toll” of “14 soldiers killed and many others missing” after the latest attack.
“Every effort has been made to ‘neutralise’ the individuals who carried out the attack,” another security official said, also speaking anonymously.
“Many of them were killed during the counterattack.”
WAMAPS, a group of West African journalists specialising in security news in the Sahel, said “nearly 20” soldiers and civilian volunteer fighters who support the military (VDPs) could have died.
It said JNIM had released “a shocking video showing around 15 dead soldiers, some of whom had been burned alive”.
VDPs, or Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland, are civilian auxiliaries of the army engaged in combatting extremists.
In February, JNIM claimed responsibility for several attacks on soldiers and VDPs.
More than 130 people were killed over a period of about 10 days, according to ACLED, an NGO which records casualties in conflict worldwide.
The junta in Ouagadougou rarely reports on jihadist attacks now and regularly claims it is regaining ground from armed groups.
According to the Global Terrorism Index, the Sahel region — particularly Burkina, Niger and Mali — accounted in 2025 for nearly half of all deaths linked to violent extremism worldwide.
The United Nations said in November that the decision by the three military-run countries to leave regional bloc ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) “has created a gap in regional coordination, complicating collective responses to escalating violent extremism across the Sahel”.
AFP
