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Al-Qaeda affiliate claims 200 soldiers killed in Burkina Faso attack
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.Al-Qaeda affiliate claims 200 soldiers killed in Burkina Faso attack
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.Reporting from Dakar, Senegal, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said the attack took place over a number of days.
“One of the major military outposts that was supposed to protect this town of about 200,000 people was razed to the ground, such was the firepower of the armed groups,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Senegal, Dakar.
“This is one of the deadliest attacks in Burkina Faso, and it comes just as Ibrahim Traore [Burkina Faso’s military leader] has been saying that the country has been gaining territory, encouraging people to go back to their homes, but this latest attack proves the opposite,” said Haque.
A video circulating on social media from the al-Qaeda affiliate warned people to leave their homes and said it would seize more territories.
“What we’re seeing here is the pivot point where these armed groups that normally attack villages are now trying to take over towns. It’s a major blow for Burkina Faso’s armed forces,” Haque said, noting the attacks come just as Traore was visiting Russia, asking President Vladimir Putin for more training and arms to fight off armed groups.
JNIM claimed responsibility for another assault this week targeting a military post in Burkina Faso’s northern Loroum province in which the group said 60 soldiers were killed, according to SITE.
The attacks highlight the difficulties the three Sahel nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, ruled by military leaders, are facing in containing the armed groups.
Burkina Faso authorities have not commented on the latest attacks.
A notable attack occurred in the Burkina town of Sole, where JNIM fighters raided the army military post and killed soldiers, SITE Intelligence said, without specifying on which day it took place.
A Military government took power in Burkina Faso in 2022, but they have largely failed to provide stability, as more than 60 percent of the country is estimated to be outside government control.
Al-Qaeda affiliate claims 200 soldiers killed in Burkina Faso attack
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.
AFRICA FILE, MAY 15, 2025: JNIM SEIZES BURKINABE PROVINCIAL CAPITAL IN LATEST BLOW TO TRAORÉ;
- Burkina Faso. Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen’s latest attack highlights its ability to overrun population centers in the Sahel and the failures of the coup-prone Burkinabe junta.Burkinabe junta leader Ibrahim Traoré has failed to improve security in the country while deliberately increasing violence against civilians through a counterinsurgency strategy that has systematically encouraged state-sanctioned massacres of civilians.
Figure 1. JNIM Activity in Northern Burkina Faso
Source: Liam Karr.
The Djibo attack highlights possible cooperation gaps between the Burkinabe and Malian juntas, as the attack may have involved multiple JNIM subgroups.[7] Djibo lies near the area of operations overlap between Ansaroul Islam and Katiba Macina. The former operates in the tri-border region of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, while Katiba Macina operates in western Burkina Faso and central, southern, and western Mali.[8] Multiple sources claimed that the Malian government encouraged a series of ceasefires between local leaders and Katiba Macina in central Mali earlier in 2025, which led the group to lift blockades of Malian towns and freed resources to direct across the border into Burkina Faso.[9] These developments have likely contributed to a decrease in JNIM attacks and Malian counterterrorism activity on the Malian side of the border in the Mopti region, while attacks and Burkinabe counterterrorism activity have increased.[10] Katiba Macina separately began using drones to drop explosives on army positions in Burkina Faso more regularly in March 2025, after carrying out a handful of these attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali in 2024.[11]
Figure 2. JNIM Increases “Drone Drop” Attacks
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Data.
JNIM is besieging several other major population centers in the Sahel and likely could overrun these areas should it choose to. JNIM’s rhetoric in recent months indicates that it may intensify attacks on besieged cities as part of this pressure campaign, although the group is still unlikely to directly seize and govern major population centers. JNIM’s spokesperson and high-ranking Katiba Macina leader, Mahmoud Barry, threatened in November 2024 that JNIM would “get you in the big cities.”[12] The brother of the Ansaroul Islam leader encouraged civilians in Djibo to move away from military sites and leave the city in general for their own safety after the recent attack on May 13.[13] JNIM’s siege tactics aim to dissuade civilian cooperation with state personnel and force communities into agreements that impose indirect or shadow governance without expending resources to directly seize and administer towns.[14]
Figure 3. Salafi-Jihadi Sieges Across the Sahel
Note: ISSP stands for IS Sahel Province.
Source: Liam Karr; Armed Conflict Location and Event Data; Amnesty International.
The May 11 attacks will increase the risk of a coup against the embattled Burkinabe junta, which has turned to Russia, its neighbors, and Iran for regime support. Burkinabe junta leader Ibrahim Traoré returned from Moscow, Russia, on May 11, where he attended Russia’s Victory Day celebrations and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.[15] The junta claimed to thwart a coup attempt in April, and major attacks similar to those on May 11 have helped incite coup attempts previously.[16] The French outlet Le Monde reported that the junta arrested members of elite Burkinabe units in connection with the coup plot, including members of Traoré’s protection force and elite Rapid Intervention Battalion brigades.[17] High-casualty and heavily publicized JNIM attacks in November 2021, September 2022, and June 2024 directly contributed to coup attempts in the subsequent weeks and months.[18]The optics of JNIM militants posing for pictures inside administrative buildings and the Djibo’s center roundabout will compound the fallout from the high casualties sustained in the attacks.[19]
The junta relies on Russia and its neighbors for regime support and has sought additional partners in Chad and Iran since the April coup. Russia and Mali sent reinforcements to the Burkinabe capital in the aftermath of the coup attempt in June 2024.[20] Le Monde reported that Traoré asked Chad to send 200 soldiers to reinforce his protection force after the latest coup attempt.[21] Russia also runs pro-Traoré information operations, which have bolstered Traoré’s image significantly in pan-Africanist circles worldwide despite the deteriorating security situation and increase in civilian deaths in Burkina Faso since he took power.[22] The Iranian law enforcement commander visited Burkina Faso as part of a multi-stop visit to Africa on May 6 to “share security expertise,” which was likely related to internal suppression tactics.[23]
The Burkinabe junta has failed to improve security in the country while deliberately increasing violence against civilians through a counterinsurgency strategy that has systematically encouraged state-sanctioned massacres of civilians. Traoré’s regime has killed record numbers of civilians each year since taking power.[24] 2025 is on pace to nearly equal 2024’s total of 980 civilians killed in operations involving state forces.[25] Many of these deaths are due to large-scale massacres of civilians with suspected links to insurgents, which is a war crime, and are often in retaliation for nearby insurgent attacks on security forces or civilian auxiliary militias.[26] Human Rights Watch published a new report on May 12 documenting an army-directed massacre of over 100 Fulani civilians in western Burkina Faso.[27] These tactics have been ineffective because the carnage feeds retaliatory cycles of violence against civilians, which fuel JNIM recruitment and allow JNIM to pose as avengers and protectors for targeted communities.[28]
Institute for the Study of War
Burkina Faso. Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen’s latest attack highlights its ability to overrun population centers in the Sahel and the failures of the coup-prone Burkinabe junta.
All them A.I. videos and autistic posting doesn’t mean much when it comes to bullets and technicals does it
