Huge wave of violence: Significance of the terrorist attack on Ougarou base in Burkina Faso

Ahmed Adel

In a new scene indicating that security chaos has become the prevailing scene in Burkina Faso, terrorist elements attacked a military base located in the city of Ougarou in the east of the country, killing 33 soldiers and wounding 12 others.

For its part, the army in Burkina Faso confirmed in an official statement that the armed attack targeted the military unit in the city of Ougarou, adding that the soldiers who were trapped in the attack killed at least 40 militants before the arrival of reinforcements.

During the last eight years, Burkina Faso has become mired in a sea of terrorism, especially against the army, which has become an aspiration for armed elements to exploit the spread of security chaos in the country and to benefit from political crises that would turn the country into a security dilemma. These terrorist attacks have also killed nearly 10,000 people over the past period, including military and civilian deaths, and displaced nearly a million people.

In April 2023, the Burkinabe authorities, under the presidency of Captain Ibrahim Traore, who has been leading the country since his seizure of power in September 2022, issued a decree announcing a “general mobilization” for a year in order to confront the terrorist attacks in the country.

Recently, terrorist operations carried out by armed elements have intensified, which poses a great security threat and a growing concern for the authorities in Burkina Faso, putting them in a major dilemma as a result of the difficulty of recovering those lands seized by the armed elements.

For his part, Mohamed Fouad Rashwan, a researcher of African affairs, said that the terrorist attack on a military base in Djibo in northern Burkina Faso, in which about 10 soldiers were killed and more than 50 others injured, was a strong reaction by the armed groups in response to the military campaign that was launched by the army forces at the beginning of April in the north and east of the country, which came as a response to the attack carried out by armed groups on two villages that killed 44 of their residents. This military campaign succeeded in arresting a large number of armed elements, as well as killing a number of them, according to official statements.

In a special statement to the Reference, Rashwan confirmed that the increase in terrorist operations in Burkina Faso has much significance, including the failure of the military forces to defend its territory, especially after the withdrawal of the French forces without the Burkinabe forces receiving sufficient training and support to confront these terrorist operations in particular.

Rashwan added that the intensity of competition and conflict to extend influence and control over the West African region has also increased between the fighters of the different groups, which are estimated at about six groups, the most prominent of which is ISIS, which includes approximately 50,000 fighters, representing nearly a third of the number of individuals in the rest of the groups seeking to spread their influence over many regions in West Africa.

He pointed out that these operations also indicated the weakness of inter-cooperation between the countries of the region to confront the threat of terrorist groups following the withdrawal of Mali from the Group of Sahel countries and the tendency of the constituent countries of the group to cooperate bilaterally instead of collective cooperation, thus providing the opportunity for many of these armed groups to move to other countries after their military operations.