Burkina Faso’s interim president, Ibrahim Traore, has vowed to recapture all the country’s territory still under terrorist control by 2025. The West African nation has been battling jihadist groups since 2015, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Capt. Traore announced the target date during an interview with national broadcaster RTB on Saturday, marking his second anniversary as Burkina Faso’s military ruler after ousting interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba in a September 2022 coup.
The transitional leader said his government has recruited more than 30,000 people into the army as part of a commitment to defeat rebel groups and retake the territories they occupy.
“The intensity of the offensives has decreased due to the rainy season and we will resume them very soon. The year 2025 is crucial and we will conquer the remaining 30% of the territory,” Traore said.
On August 24, the landlocked country suffered one of the deadliest attacks since violence spilled over from neighboring Mali over a decade ago. At least 200 were reportedly killed and 169 others injured when Islamist militants opened fire on residents who were digging defensive trenches in the north-central town of Barsalogho.
Speaking to RTB over the weekend, Traore claimed that the Barsalogho assault was intended to harm him.
“I will not go into details, but I think I was personally targeted. In July 2022, I defied many orders to intervene so that Barsalogho would not fall. I sacrificed a lot of things for Barsalogho. They targeted Barsalogho because it was going to affect me,” he stated.
He also stated that the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), formed last year by his country and allies in Mali and Niger to defend each other from internal and external threats, “is a target.”
According to the Burkinabe leader, “seeing Africans unite is not good for other people,” so they are doing everything possible to destroy the AES.
“That is why very early on we began to immediately set up liaison officers in each country,” he said.
Traore did not mention names, but he and allies in Niamey and Bamako have previously accused Ukraine of supporting terrorism in the Sahel after insurgents allegedly used intelligence from Kiev to carry out an attack in July that killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Wagner Group military personnel.
All three countries under military rule have severed defense ties with their former colonial power, France, citing meddling and the alleged failure of French forces to resolve the unrest. The former French colonies have sought security cooperation with Russia, and Moscow has agreed to assist them in counter-terrorism efforts.