Burkina: Traoré "determined" and supported in the face of jihadism despite the death of 51 soldiers

The head of the Burkinabè military junta on Tuesday showed his "

" to fight the jihadists after an ambush which killed at least 51 of his soldiers, and received the support of parties and other organizations in the face of this attack deemed "

". .

The ambush on Friday of an army patrol in the Sahel region (north) was followed

", according to the army, which on Monday gave a "

" of 51 soldiers killed and around 160 "

" jihadists

.

Opposition support

Faced with this attack, the deadliest since he took power at the end of September in a coup, Captain Ibrahim Traoré said in a message on Tuesday that in this "fight strewn with pitfalls", the

patriotic

and the authorities' "

" remained "

" against the jihadist groups.

The first political parties to react, whose activities have been suspended since Traoré's coup, expressed their support for him.

"

", declared in a press release Zéphirin Diabré, President of the Union for Change (UPC).

Zéphirin Diabré, who denounced a "

", is the former Minister of National Reconciliation of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, overthrown in January 2022 during a first putsch for his "

" to fight jihadist groups whose attacks have bloodied Burkina since 2015.

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The Pan-African Salvation Party (PPS), considered to be rather close to the putschist military, also condemned a "

".

“

”, the National Youth Council of Burkina Faso (CNJ-BF), a civil society organization close to the junta, invited in a press release “all young people

” the armed forces, their civilian auxiliaries and the authorities "

".

Spiral of violence

Deadly raids attributed to jihadists have multiplied in recent weeks in Burkina Faso.

In total, with Friday's attack, nearly 200 civilians and soldiers have died since early February, according to an AFP count.

The country, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.

The violence has claimed more than 10,000 lives over the past seven years - civilians and soldiers - according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.

Shortly after taking power, Captain Traoré set himself the goal of “

” some 40% of Burkinabe territory controlled by jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

But since then, the attacks attributed to them have only increased and Friday's ambush is "

", headlines L'Observateur Paalga, an influential independent daily, on Tuesday.

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His heavy balance sheet calls out.

“

asks political analyst Harouna Traoré.

“

,” he adds.

Anxious to regain their “

” in the fight against jihadists, the Burkina authorities last month asked the French Saber force, made up of 400 special forces, to leave the country.

The deadliest attack ever committed in the country remains to date that of Solhan (north) in June 2021, which had killed 130 to 160 civilians, according to the reports.

But the one who had killed 57 gendarmes in Inata (north) left to fend for themselves in November 2021, had left a deep trauma within public opinion and the armed forces.

It happened shortly before the first coup in January 2022.