Captain Ibrahim Traoré, transitional president of Burkina Faso resulting from a coup d’etat, has appointed new officials at the head of the army to lead the “warto jihadist groups and reclaim their strongholds.
According to a presidential decree sent to AFP on Friday evening, Captain Traoré replaced the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel-Major David Kabré, in office since February 2022, with Colonel-Major Célestin Simporé.
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Until then deputy chief of staff, Celestin Simporé had chaired the national assizes in October 2022 which appointed Captain Traoré as transitional president, shortly after his accession to power in September. Captain Traoré also appointed Colonel Théophile Nikiema as Chief of Staff of the Army.
“Offensive and tracking down terrorists”
No explanation has been given for these changes, which come as Burkina is facing a proliferation of deadly attacks attributed to jihadists. “They are leaders of men, responsible for leading and coordinating the offensives at the front in the war for the reconquest of the territory, wanted by the Head of State.“, explained to AFP a high-ranking security source, seeing it as the “transition to a new course, that of the offensive and the hunt for terrorists“.
Since a recent acquisition of air combat means, the army regularly broadcasts videos of strikes on columns or groups of suspected jihadists, ensuring that the reconquest and securing of the entire territory is in progress.
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In the wake of neighboring Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of violence attributed to jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) organization, which have killed more than 10,000 people. – civilians and soldiers – according to NGOs, and some two million internally displaced persons.
Faced with the resurgence of this violence, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power by a putsch on September 30, 2022 – the second in a year -, had announced in February his “determination intactto fight the jihadists, who control about 40% of the country.