Government of Burkina Faso restructuring intelligence apparatus

Ahmed Adel

Last September, Burkina Faso’s parliament approved several recommendations to the government as part of an urgent plan to combat terrorism and extremism in the country, which since 2015 has claimed the lives of nearly 118 citizens. Among the recommendations was the training and arming of the forces, the need to intensify intelligence activities, and the acceleration of the implementation of many laws to counter violence in the country.

Burkina Faso is part of the five G-5 African Community (Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad), which seeks to counter terrorism in the region through military operations, the latest of which was on the 5th of November. The Niger army launched military operations against terrorist groups bordering Mali and Burkina Faso.

In March, the country’s president, Roche Marc Christian Kapoori, said his country would continue its fight against terrorism no matter how hard it was. The war on terror was long, and the northern side was the real concern of Burkina Faso in terms of the activity of jihadist groups.

Last July, the army of Burkina Faso reported that 60 suspects had been arrested during a security operation in the north of the country aimed at establishing terrorist bases inside the country.

Last June, the Burkinese security services released a list of 146 people suspected of involvement in terrorist acts and belonging to the Ansar al-Islam group, which has a bloody presence in Africa.

The Ansar al-Islam group derives its thought from al-Qaeda, led by Abdel Salam Deco and has been in the country since 2011. In March, the group adopted the targeting of the headquarters of the armed forces and the French Institute in the capital Ouagadougou, which killed 28 people and wounded dozens. The group launched an attack on a police ambush that killed eight officers.

For her part, Dr. Amira Abdel Halim, researcher of African affairs at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said: “Suicide attacks by Ansar al-Islam have made the Burkinese government change its strategy, leading to changes in the country’s intelligence services.”

She stressed in statements to The Reference that Burkina Faso’s government is seeking in the coming period to bring about a development within the security services, including military leaders and intelligence services, adding that for some time Burkina Faso has not been subjected to very large attacks, as has been recently on the border with Mali.

The G5 seeks to modernize a range of measures to deal directly with terrorist elements, in coordination with the Sahelian governments and the French leaders, who provide all support to these governments.