{"id":543,"date":"2017-03-08T02:17:41","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T02:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=543"},"modified":"2017-03-08T02:17:41","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T02:17:41","slug":"jihadists-attack-police-posts-in-northern-burkina-faso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2017\/03\/08\/jihadists-attack-police-posts-in-northern-burkina-faso\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jihadists\u2019 attack police posts in northern Burkina Faso"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Two police posts in Burkina Faso were attacked by jihadists on Monday night, officials said, just months after 12 soldiers were killed by militants in a raid near the Mali border.<\/h2>\n<p>It was unclear whether there had been any casualties from the latest attack, which took place in Soum province in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/burkina-faso\/\" target=\"_blank\">country&#8217;s<\/a> north, security minister Simon Compaore told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>Two other security sources told AFP jihadists were behind the attack.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The attacks took place almost simultaneously,&#8221; said Mohamed Dah, Soum police high commissioner. &#8220;Gunfire has ceased but the assailants are still at the scene. We&#8217;ve dispatched military reinforcements.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to find out if this is a diversion tactic, used to (get us to) mobilise security forces and then attack more important targets,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Another security source, who did not wish to be named, said the attack at one post began when &#8220;a dozen jihadis arrived on six motorbikes&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The incident comes with the capital <a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/Ouagadougou\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ouagadougou<\/a> on high security alert as it hosts the 25th<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fespaco.bf\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Pan-African Film and Television Festival<\/a>, with scores of cinephiles and international visitors in town.<\/p>\n<p>Long spared the Islamist violence affecting several nations in the region, notably Mali and Niger, Burkina has been hit by a series of attacks and kidnappings since April 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the raids have occurred near the northern border, but in January 2016, 30 people were killed and 71 wounded in the capital Ouagadougou <a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20160116-live-security-forces-launch-assault-burkina-hotel\" target=\"_blank\">after gunmen stormed a restaurant and a four-star hotel<\/a>, taking hostages.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20160115-shots-explosions-heard-hotel-burkina-faso-capital-ouagadougou\" target=\"_blank\">Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attacks<\/a>, which ended after Burkinabe troops and French counterterrorist forces posted in the country staged an offensive.<\/p>\n<p>On December 12, jihadists killed 12 soldiers in an attack against an army squad about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Mali frontier.<\/p>\n<p>The raid &#8212; the deadliest ever against Burkina Faso&#8217;s military &#8212; caused a public outcry, with some calling for the sacking of a military leadership accused of failing to match up to the jihadist threat.<\/p>\n<p><em>(AFP)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two police posts in Burkina Faso were attacked by jihadists on Monday night, officials said, just months after 12 soldiers were killed by militants in a raid near the Mali border. It was unclear whether there had been any casualties from the latest attack, which took place in Soum province in the country&#8217;s north, security minister Simon Compaore told AFP&#8230;. <a href=\"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2017\/03\/08\/jihadists-attack-police-posts-in-northern-burkina-faso\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}