At the end of last July, about 100 terrorists attacked the Dargo military camp, northeast of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and killed about 50 soldiers. Two months earlier, members of the same jihadist group attacked another military base in Djibo, in the north, and killed 200 soldiers. These two incidents, which the Burkinabe authorities try to hide, are just a sample of the violence that Captain Ibrahim Traoré, leader of the Burkinabe military junta, is trying to confront, without much success. The person behind these attacks is Jafar Dicko, the highest authority of Ansarul Islam, the local branch of Al Qaeda, who has become Traoré’s real nightmare. This is the story of an antagonism that bleeds Burkina Faso.
Jafar Dicko, also known as Yero, rose to command Ansarul Islam in 2017, after the death of his two older brothers, Ibrahim Malam and Mansour, numbers one and two of the terrorist organization. It is known that he did not carry out Quranic studies, that he worked as a mechanic, that he is a fan of social networks and their use for the jihadist cause and that he has an explosive character. Married with two wives and father of five children, he is the main forger of the alliance between his terrorist group and the katiba Macina of the preacher Amadou Koufa, in neighboring Mali. His obsession is fighting the infidels and he moves like a fish in water in the north of the country, where he is from.
After the attack on Djibo last May, Jafar Dicko recorded a video in which he launched a direct threat against the Burkinabe authorities, whom he called “criminal and tyrannical leaders.” He did not need to name them, but everyone knows that he was referring to Captain Ibrahim Traoré and his men, the military who took power in Burkina Faso in 2022 and who, since then, have launched a crusade against the terrorists who roam freely across 40% of Burkinabe territory. However, things are not going well for Traoré, who despite all his efforts is far from putting a jihadism that has shown time and again its resilience on the ropes.
At the altar of this patriotic fight, the leader of the Burkinabe military junta has sacrificed freedoms in his country. Human rights activists, journalists and members of the battered political class suffer disappearances, prison, exile or forced enlistment in the Army if they dare to raise their voices or show even a hint of criticism against the regime. In parallel, and thanks to a studied campaign by Traoré, an image of a Pan-Africanist and anti-colonial leader has been created on social networks who seduces millions of people around the world while avoiding internal attempts at destabilization, both real and invented, which attest to his true obsession: to remain in power at all costs.
Jafar Dicko knows the importance of image and, by putting dead people on the table, he is the main architect of the captain’s wear and tear, which grows in the corners and shadow areas of a regime that lives in the precarious contradiction of presenting itself as a liberator while presenting clear liberticidal profiles.
Captain Traoré can boast of the support of tens of thousands of compatriots who have believed in his crusade against evil, but let no one despise the deep causes that have moved thousands of people to embrace Dicko’s cause. Poverty, injustice or even ethnic discrimination are sometimes more powerful reasons than patriotism.
