Tag Archives: Burkina Faso

How Countries Dissolve: the Conquest of Africa

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As Wagner fighters, a Russian mercenary group, play a central role in Russia’s war in Ukraine, the group is quietly expanding its alliances in Africa, penetrating new mineral-rich areas, exploiting the exit of Western powers and creating alliances with local fighters. Wagner fighters and instructors are working with the government of the Central African Republic in a bid to seize areas rich with precious minerals that could be exported through Sudan, say Western security officials. Wagner is also looking to expand its influence in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, while consolidating its relationship with the military junta in Mali…

With an estimated 5,000 men stationed across Africa, Wagner’s footprint is now almost as large as the U.S.’s 6,000 troops and support personnel on the continent. ..The push aims to create a corridor from Wagner-controlled mines in the Central African Republic through Sudan, where the group works closely with a local strongman, and onto the mineral trading hub of Dubai.

In January 2023,  Mr. Prigozhin, head of Wagner, stressed that sending fighters to Africa was “absolutely necessary.” “There are presidents to whom I gave my word that I would defend them,” he said on his Telegram channel. “If I now withdraw one hundred, two hundred or five hundred fighters from there, then this country will simply cease to exist.”  

Excerpts from Benoit Faucon & Joe Parkinson, Wagner Group Aims to Bolster Putin’s Influence in Africa, WSJ, Feb. 14, 2023

The Jihadist Mafia: Controlling the Gold of Sahel

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Burkina Faso is struggling to contain a fast-growing jihadist insurgency. Along with Mali and Niger, it has become the main front line against terrorists in the Sahel, a dry strip of land that runs along the edge of the Sahara. This year alone the conflict has killed more than 1,600 people and forced half a million from their homes in Burkina Faso….A worrying new trend is a battle by jihadists and other armed groups to take control of the region’s gold rush.

Although gold has long been mined in the region…it has boomed in recent years with the discovery of shallow deposits that stretch from Sudan to Mauritania. International mining companies have invested as much as $5bn in west African production over the past decade, but the rush has also lured hundreds of thousands of unsophisticated “artisanal” miners. The International Crisis Group (ICG), an NGO, reckons that more than 2m people are involved in small-scale mining in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. In total they dig up 40-95 tonnes of gold a year, worth some $1.9bn-4.5bn.

Artisanal Mining’s Claustrophobic Conditions

This rush—in a region where states are already weak and unable to provide security—has sucked in a variety of armed groups and jihadists, including the likes of Ansar Dine and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara…The jihadists probably have direct control of fewer than ten mines…But they have influence over many more. In some areas artisanal miners are forced to pay “taxes” to the jihadists. In others, such as Burkina Faso’s Soum province, the miners hire jihadists to provide security… Other armed groups such as ethnic militias are also in on the bonanza and collect cash to guard mines. International mining firms may also be funding the jihadists by paying ransoms for abducted employees or “protection” money to keep mining, according to a study published by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries.

For the moment much of Burkina Faso’s artisanal production is sneaked into Togo… Togo does not produce much gold domestically but it sent more than 12 tonnes of gold to Dubai in 2016. Gold is also taken out of the Sahel through major airports in hand luggage. 

The resource curse: How west Africa’s gold rush is funding jihadists, Economist, Nov. 16, 2019

US Special Forces in Africa: the G-5 Sahel

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The number of attacks in Burkina Faso  have increased as al Qaeda- and ISIS-linked groups have established a presence there, attacking remote gendarmerie outposts and expanding their reach from Mali and Niger in attempt to take advantage of what they see as a permissible environment.  The number of violent incidents in Burkina Faso linked to the local affiliates of al Qaeda JNIM* and ISIS (Greater Sahara) rose from 24 in 2017 to 136 in 2018, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 

 US Special Forces that train the Burkina Faso military told CNN in March 2019 that the US was considering deploying surveillance drones to Burkina Faso in order to help the country better monitor threats…The Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Chad, make up the G-5 Sahel, a multinational task force charged with combating transnational terrorists….A Burkinabe officer told CNN on Monday that terror groups had managed to recruit locals in the north of the country by exploiting the economic situation in the region, where many live in povert

**the local branch of al Qaeda, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), commands over 800 fighters while ISIS in the Greater Sahara has approximately 300 members.

Excerpts from US Forces Train in African Nation Facing Twin Terror Threat, CNN, Mar. 2, 2019

National Parks: Benin

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Benin is hiring scores of extra park rangers and bringing in conservation scientists to rehabilitate part of West Africa’s largest wildlife reserve, which contains big cats and thousands of elephants that have largely died out elsewhere in the region. The W-Arli-Pendjari (WAP) complex is the region’s biggest remaining expanse of savannah, covering more than 30,000 sq km of Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The tiny nation has partnered with NGO African Parks for the 10-year project centred on the 4,800 sq km Pendjari National Park, part of WAP and seen as the most viable tourist hub for the area, officials involved told Reuters.

“Pendjari is an opportunity for Benin and the region,” Jose Pliya, director of Benin’s national tourism agency, told Reuters. “This partnership will help us make it a sustainable tourism destination and a lever for development and employment for Beninoise.”

Boosting ecotourism faces challenges, not least because jihadists are thought to have infiltrated parts of the wider reserve. France, former colonial master of the three nations straddling the park advised it citizens against all travel to the Burkina Faso side of the expanse.

To better police the park, the project will recruit 10 officers or specialists, train 90 guards, set up a satellite communications network and put a 190 km fence around it, a joint statement from African Parks and Benin said.

Excerpts from Moves to save part of west Africa’s last big wildlife refuge, Reuters, June 2, 2017

U.S. Special Operations in 30 African Countries

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The United States Army’s Transportation Command (US-TRANSCOM) is looking for private flight contractors to transport commandos from the Joint Special Taskforce Trans-Sahara as they conduct ‘high risk activities’ in 31 African countries.The pre-solicitation notice, issued by the US-TRANSCOM on 1 April, says the contractor will need to conduct air drops, fly commandos in and out of hostile territory and carry out short notice medical evacuation between 12 August 2013 and 27 June 2017. A 10.5 month base period will start in August this year to be followed by three one-year option periods.  [This is]  under the auspices of the US military’s Africa Command, under which the Joint Special Operations Task Force – Trans Sahara (JSOTF-TF) falls.

TRANSCOM is looking for aircraft able to carry at least six passengers and 2 500 pounds of cargo. From the US intelligence hub located in a military airfield in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso..…”Services shall be based at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, with services provided to, but not limited to, the recognized political boundaries of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda, as dictated by operational requirements. It is anticipated the most likely additional locations for missions from the above list would be to: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia,” the Transcom work statement reads.

The expansion of US commando operations is focused on confronting the threat posed by Sahelian and sub-Saharan terror groups which include Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar al Dine and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), which operate in nearly all north and north-west African countries. The operations are also aimed at confronting Al Qaeda inspired Nigerian Islamist militant groups Boko Haram and its more radical splinter movement Jamā atu Anṣāril Muslimīna fī Bilādis Sūdān (Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa), better known as Ansaru.

In East and Central Africa, the US special forces operations will target renegade rebel groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its leader Joseph Kony, Al Shabaab in Somalia, Islamic militant sleeper cells in the coastal areas of Kenya and Tanzania and various regional rebel groups operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In yet another sign of intensifying US military and security interest in Africa, the US Defence Logistics Agency on April 12 issued a request for bids to provide the US Air Force with 547,500 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel “for ongoing deliveries to Niamey Airport, Niger, (Africa).“The fuel is intended for a fleet of unarmed US Predator drones which are presently flying intelligence and surveillance missions from a military airport in Niamey into Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Mauritania, Algeria and other suspected terrorist locations in the Sahel.

Since 2009, private flight contractors engaged by US special operations forces have been operating Pilatus PC-12s on intelligence gathering and image collection missions over Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Central Africa Republic and other Central African states from a small airport located near the Ugandan city of Entebbe. 

Excerpt, Oscar Nkala, US Army seeking private contractors for African commando transportation, www.defenceweb.co.z, May 7, 2013