Group Linked to Al-Qaeda Kills at Least 100 in West Africa
A group linked to Al-Qaeda killed at least 100 individuals during a recent attack on a village in West Africa.
On Monday, the Associated Press (AP) reported that an attack over the weekend in a village in the country of Burkina Faso by a group of jihadists linked to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda left at least 100 villagers and soldiers dead.
A regional specialist told the AP that after reviewing videos, they were able to consider the incident one of the deadliest attacks in Burkina Faso this year.
Villagers in the Barsalogho commune, located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital, were assisting security forces in digging trenches to defend security outposts and villages on Saturday when militants from the Al-Qaida-linked JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin) group attacked, opening fire on them, Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, told the AP.
In a statement obtained by the AP on Sunday, Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the group had gained “total control over a militia position” in Barsalogho, a town in Kaya that has been used as a strategic area for jihadists groups.
Nasr told the AP that videos showed at least 100 dead bodies following the attack. However, the AP and Newsweek could not independently verify the videos.
In response to the attack, Burkina Faso’s security minister Mahamadou Sana appeared on state television and said that the government fought the jihadists from both the air and the ground. The minister did not say explicitly how many casualties were recorded, but he noted that both civilians and soldiers died in the attack.
“We are not going to accept such barbarity on the territory,” Sana said, noting that medical and humanitarian aid is being provided to those injured in the attack.
Burkina Faso has often faced violence from jihadists as roughly half of the country is outside of control from the government. Thousands have been killed and many others have been displaced in the West African country due to ongoing attacks.
Burkina Faso’s junta leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore—who activists claim has been conscripting critics into the army as a form of punishment—has also called on civilians to support the military’s security efforts. The civilian task force, Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP), is already collaborating closely with the military.
On Monday, Nicholas Haque, a correspondent in Senegal for Al Jazeera, said that JNIM shared videos following the attack showing dozens of dead bodies and graves.
“We see men, women and children laying inside the trenches they were digging themselves. Effectively, they have turned into mass graves,” Haque said, according to Al Jazeera.
Source » msn
