Burkina jihadist attacks on army leave at least 10 dead

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast: Suspected Islamist militants attacked an army unit in northern Burkina Faso Sunday, the latest in a series of alleged jihadist attacks that have killed at least 10 people in four days, security sources told AFP.

The west African country, ruled by a military junta since a 2022 coup, has been plagued with violence from militants allied to Al-Qaeda or the Daesh group for more than a decade.

Social media has been awash with speculation that the spate of attacks may have killed dozens of soldiers, but AFP has been unable to independently verify those claims.

The junta, which seized power on the promise to crack down on the violence, has ceased to communicate on jihadist attacks.

On Sunday, militants carried out a major attack on a military detachment in the northern town of Nare, two security sources told AFP.

The previous day, the Burkinabe army’s unit in the northern city of Titao was “targeted by a group of several hundred terrorists,” one of the sources said.

While the source did not give a death toll for either attack, they said part of the military base in Titao had been destroyed.

The interior minister of Ghana, which borders Burkina Faso to the south, said the government had “received disturbing information from Burkina Faso of a truck carrying tomato traders from Ghana which was caught in a terrorist attack in Titao.”