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1 [1] (December 10, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdcwu0001 and id is 1 raw text is: * Updated December 10, 2020 Burkina Faso Burkina Faso has become a stark symbol of worsening security trends in West Africa's Sahel region. Since 2016, Islamist insurgent groups have asserted control over parts of the country and carried out terrorist attacks in the capital, Ouagadougou. Some have ties to the conflict in neighboring Mali, and to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. The government has struggled to counter insurgent gains despite international backing and military aid, while state security forces and militia groups have been implicated in severe human rights abuses. The conflict has crippled health and education systems in parts of the country and deepened food insecurity. Over a million Burkinabe were internally displaced as of late 2020, nearly double the number a year earlier, according to U.N. data. The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought new health and economic hardships. President Roch Marc Christian Kabor6 was reelected in November 2020 to a second five-year term. Security threats prevented polling stations from opening in multiple districts, and opposition leaders initially decried the results as fraudulent. Despite a comfortable margin of victory, Kabor6 appears likely to face ongoing public demands for greater security, job creation, governance reforms, and accountability. Opposition presidential candidates called for peace talks with jihadist groups, which Kabor6 opposes as does France, the country's most significant external counterterrorism partner. Kabor6's first election to the presidency in 2015 capped a yearlong political transition that began when protesters, backed by some military commanders, ousted semi- authoritarian President Blaise Compaor6. A towering figure in West African politics, Compaor6 had come to power in a 1987 coup; his latest attempt to evade term limits by changing the constitution sparked the protests that unseated him. In mid-2015, a counter-coup by Compaor6 loyalists nearly derailed the civilian-led transitional government, but protesters and conventional army units ultimately induced the coup leaders to stand down. In January 2016, gunmen opened fire at a Ouagadougou hotel and coffee shop popular with foreigners, killing 30 people including an American. An Islamist insurgency known as Ansarul Islam emerged in the rural north around the same time, targeting schools, local officials, and individuals accused of collaborating with the state. Attacks escalated in 2017 after the terrorist groups that had claimed the Ouagadougou attack Algerian-origin Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al Murabitoun, an offshoot merged with two Mali-based groups to form the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims (aka JNIM). In 2018, JNIM clamed a complex assault on the national military headquarters and the French embassy in the capital. U.N. sanctions investigators report that JNIM and Ansarul Islam are separate groups that are mutually supportive. Figure I. Burkina Faso at a Glance CapiaW: Ouagadougou size: iighn N rger thon c olor ad * Popuiatknm 208 rni lkn nU N Languages: Fm cn<h ofkihml Religions: Musim 62, Roman Cac 23 traditonaan mist 8A Protestelt 7,;. !ther'one / (2010 estJ Ethnicities: Moss 52'% F'an (Pe % Gurrno 7%, Bob 5% Te., ege$a % , espcifie % (210 ,ife expectancy: 62.7 years Adult Iiteracy: 4I1' (maie 50%, fem al ?3f (018) GOP growth / per capita: 2 , -769 Key exports: Ged cotn ivsn Sources: CIA World Factbook and IMF; 2020 estimates unless noted. The conflict has primarily affected the north and east, with signs of spillover into the countries of coastal West Africa, to the south. Local security forces and civilians have been the primary victims of insurgent violence. In the north, Ansarul Islam and JNIM have exploited ethnic tensions and perceptions of state neglect, as well as grievances over corruption, patronage politics, social stratification, and land disputes. The east is a stronghold of the Islamic State- Greater Sahara (IS-GS), which first emerged as an AQIM splinter faction and has reportedly cultivated ties with local criminal networks. IS-GS notably claimed the October 2017 deadly ambush of U.S. troops in nearby Niger. Islamic State propaganda has claimed IS-GS attacks as the work of its Nigerian-origin affiliate, the Islamic State-West Africa Province; per U.N. investigators, the two affiliates have a logistical relationship but remain operationally distinct. Several factors may explain why conflict spread so quickly in Burkina Faso despite a history of religious and ethnic tolerance. Minority Christian dominance of the civil service and political class had reportedly spurred sectarian tensions. Mali-based insurgents appear to have lent support to Burkinabe allies, and have long threatened to attack countries, such as Burkina Faso, that contribute troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali. Compaor6's ouster in 2014, and the decision to dissolve his elite presidential guard after the 2015 coup attempt, arguably disrupted the security apparatus, which in any case had little prior combat experience. These events may also have interrupted backchannel communications between Islamist militants and Burkinabe security officials. Compaor6 hosted talks with Malian armed groups in 2012, and his associates participated in reputedly lucrative hostage negotiations. Five years into the conflict, state counterinsurgency tactics also appear to be driving insurgent recruitment and violence * .....*.~

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