Crisis Alert: Burkina Faso
The proliferation of coups in West Africa is aiding the Salafi-Jihadist movement
Since gaining independence from France in 1960, Burkina Faso has long been governed by a string of military juntas. This tradition continued in January 2022 when the Armed Forces deposed the first democratically elected President in almost a half century, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.
Kaboré had governed since 2015, and was two years in to his second term when growing dissatisfaction with the ongoing Salafi-Jihadist insurgency (which has displaced upwards of one million Burkinabè citizens) led to the military installing an interim president on January 31 ostensibly to restore order. That interim president—Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba—would last a total of 272 days before Captain Ibrahim Traoré initiated the second coup d'état in just eight months which roughly brings us to today’s governing situation in the land-locked West African nation.
Damiba, and subsequently Traoré, have been even less effective than civilian leadership was in combatting Islamic State-Sahel Province and al-Qaeda forces. A report from the Associated Press in early September on a battle in Yatenga province that saw militants kill fifty state-backed security forces noted:
Since the first coup in January 2022 the number of people killed by jihadis has nearly tripled compared with the 18 months before, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Two months later, al-Qaeda would slaughter forty civilians and burn refugee camps in the blockaded town of Djibo in northern Burkina Faso. And even though the junta only controls roughly half their country’s territory, on December 2 it announced it would be withdrawing from the G5-Sahel—a joint counterterrorism agreement between West African countries supported by France. This follows Traoré’s decision to expel French counterterrorism forces from the country earlier this year.
The rapidly deteriorating security situation in West Africa has also fomented an environment ripe for human rights abuses by the ruling junta. Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances are common. Just eleven days ago, human rights activist and regime critic Daouda Diallo was abducted under the pretense of forced mobilization:
Earlier this year, Burkina Faso’s junta announced the “general mobilization” decree to recapture territories lost as jihadi attacks continue to ravage the landlocked country.
The decree empowers the government to send people to join the fight against the armed groups. But it is also being used to “target individuals who have openly criticized the junta” and “to silence peaceful dissent and punish its critics,” Human Rights Watch has said.
Burkinabè citizens unfortunately have the misfortune of being terrorized by an Islamist death cult and repressed by their own state. The very same state that may attempt to shield itself from military intervention to restore civilian rule from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by federating with fellow junta-led neighbors, Mali and Niger. This idea was floated during a meeting of the three nations’ foreign ministers last week after previously signing a tripart mutual defense agreement. In August, ECOWAS threatened to invade Niger in response to their July 2023 coup.
The regime is also seeking to strengthen military ties with Russia after previously securing an agreement from Moscow to build a nuclear power plant in the electricity starved country over the summer. This pivot east should raise the blood pressure of every Burkinabè denizen as Russian private military companies like the late Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group have been wreaking havoc in Africa from Mali to Madagascar for years now.
Russia has great interest in continuing to extract as many riches as it can from Africa after liquidating their most high-profile liaison on the continent. Whether that comes from lucrative security contracts or strong arming control of gold mining operations, you can be sure the Kremlin is mulling over how to best exploit the chaotic situation in the Sahel.
The battle between democracy and autocracy is playing out all across the globe this decade and Russia is keen to sponsor as many anti-western dictators as possible. As military coups continue to spread across West Africa, the West’s ability to police Islamic terrorism in the region greatly diminishes. And while ISIS may no longer govern a proto-state in the Levant, the organization and its affiliates still dream of creating a global caliphate and will kill as many innocent people as they can in pursuit of that goal.
Islamic State-East Asia Province
An ISIS affiliate in the South Pacific has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack at a Catholic Mass in the southern Philippines that killed four people last week. Militant Wire [paid subscription required] has the readout:
A spokesman for the Islamic State of Southeast Asia (ISEAP) issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks and stating that the group is fighting against both Philippine security forces as well as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has been in a peace treaty with Manila since 2014 and is aiding Philippine security forces in their fight against the ISEAP. A December 1 post by the ISEAP announced its intent to re-occupy the city of Marawi and released the photo of an alleged child of an ISEAP militant who was killed in clashes with MILF fighters.
Americans may consider ISIS a bygone threat from the previous decade, but its confederacy of regional cells will continue their global campaign of terror until governments the world over dedicate the resources necessary to eliminate them root and stem.
Houthis
The Biden administration continues to bury its head in the sand with regards to the threat of Iran-sponsored Houthi attacks against Red Sea commercial shipping and U.S. forces. Politico reported on December 6:
while top Biden administration officials acknowledge the threat to U.S. troops, they are not convinced the U.S. needs to respond militarily. They believe the Houthis were attempting to target assets with ties to Israel — either owned by Israeli companies or crewed by Israelis — not U.S. warships. But Houthi missiles aren’t overly precise.
Three days later the Houthis would proclaim they “will from now on start targeting any ship passing through the Red Sea on its way to Israel, regardless of whether the ship’s ownership is linked to the Jewish state.”
Make no mistake—This is a declaration of war on global commerce and the world should respond accordingly.
Venezuela-Guyana
A chief advisor to Brazil’s socialist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rebuked Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s recent designs on neighboring Guyana’s Essequibo region last week and the Brazilian military seems to be taking proactive measures:
Brazil's military has reinforced the border region due to rising tensions between Venezuela and Guyana. The Brazilian army is moving armored vehicles and more troops to Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state, the Defense Ministry said.
I should note that international observers don’t have much faith in the Venezuelan military’s ability to forcibly conquer thousands of miles of Guyanan jungle:
Venezuela’s military remains laser-focused on the one thing it does well, and that’s trafficking cocaine, not fighting wars.
That said, the Brazilians seem to be taking this threat seriously enough to be on high alert. Additionally, U.S. Southern Command conducted joint flights with the Guyanan Air Force on December 7 to “to enhance [their] security partnership…and to strengthen regional cooperation” and presumably send an overt message to Caracas to back off.
Afghanistan
It’s been 812 days since the Taliban barred teenage Afghan girls from attending public school following the U.S. withdrawal from the country that led to the democratic government’s collapse:
The Taliban have barred women from most areas of public life and work and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed after taking power in 2021.
Pakistan is also continuing to move forward with deporting more than one million Afghan refugees, some of whom have spent most of their lives in Pakistan:
Afghans of all ethnicities, including Hazara and Turkmen, have been crossing the border since 1979 to escape political developments in their own country. First, they fled the Russians, then the Taliban. Children who followed their parents in 1979 are now middle aged and remember their desperate flight to Pakistan and their lives in refugee camps.
Suzanne Raine’s explanation of this current crisis is thorough—I’d recommend reading the whole thing.
It’s infuriating that the Trump administration laid the groundwork for this catastrophe and that the Biden administration chose to follow through on voluntarily surrendering Afghanistan to the monsters that now despotically rule it. As I’ve written before, the reconstituted Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan poses a grave threat to the United States’ national security.
2024 will be a crucial year domestically and abroad and I’ve got some ambitious plans for Son of a Diplomat. If you find what I’m doing here useful, consider sharing my work to help grow the newsletter. Thank you as always for reading and I’ll be back next Monday.