Since August 2015, an insurgency has been fought between the government of Burkina Faso and Islamist militant groups, including Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), Ansarul Islam and the Islamic State – Sahel Province (IS–SP). It is estimated that 30% of the country is controlled by jihadist forces. The insurgency originated in the northern area of Burkina Faso amid the broader Mali war, and has grown to affect most of the country.
The conflict intensified after 2016, when Ansarul Islam carried out large scaled attacks in northern Burkina Faso, causing violence to spread into the eastern and central regions. Islamic groups have targeted military bases, civilians, schools, religious leaders and local officials, while government forces and allied militias have been accused of extrajudicial killings and ethnic reprisals, particularly against Fulani communities. The insurgency has contributed to intercommunal violence and ongoing humanitarian crisis.
This led to two military coups in 2022 that brought Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and later Captain Ibrahim Traoré to power. From that time onwards, Burkina Faso kept distance from France and other western countries, strengthening security cooperation with Mali, Niger and Russia. Despite military offensives and mobilization of the Volunteers for the defense of the Homeland, Islamic groups continue to control large areas of the country.
The insurgency has led to the displacement of over 2 million people and the deaths of at least 20,000 civilians and combatants. Large areas in Burkina Faso are suffering from severe food insecurity and disruption of public services. The war has been interpreted as being the Burkinabé theatre of the War in the Sahel.
Background
Following its incorporation into French West Africa in the late nineteenth century, Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) remained one of France's least-developed colonies. French colonial authorities concentrated administrative and economic development in the country's central and southern regions, while much of the sparsely populated Sahel in the north received comparatively little investment. State authority in these northern areas often relied on traditional and religious leaders, and cross-border trade and migration with present-day Mali and Niger continued largely uninterrupted. Following independence in 1960, many of these regional disparities persisted, with the northern provinces remaining among the poorest and least developed parts of the country.
Islam first spread into present-day Burkina Faso between the 11th and 15th centuries through trans-Saharan trade routes and the expansion of the Mali and Songhai Empires. By the colonial period, Islam had become the predominant religion in much of the country's north and east, while Christianity was more prevalent in the central and southern regions due in part to French missionary activity. For most of Burkina Faso's modern history, relations between Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of traditional African religions remained largely peaceful, with Sufi brotherhoods playing a prominent role in religious life. Beginning in the late twentieth century, however, Salafism gradually gained influence through foreign-funded mosques, religious schools, and preachers, particularly in northern Burkina Faso. Although the vast majority of Salafi organizations rejected violence, their growth coincided with broader ideological shifts occurring across the Sahel.
Between independence and the 1980s, Burkina Faso experienced repeated military coups and political instability. The country underwent major political and economic reforms under President Thomas Sankara, who ruled from 1983 until his assassination in 1987. Sankara's government sought to strengthen state institutions, expand education and healthcare, reduce the influence of traditional elites, and promote national self-sufficiency. His administration also attempted to extend government authority into remote rural regions, though many of these reforms proved short-lived following his death.
Blaise Compaoré seized power in 1987 and ruled Burkina Faso for twenty-seven years. During his presidency, the country gained a reputation as one of the more politically stable states in West Africa despite increasing instability elsewhere in the region. Compaoré pursued an active foreign policy, frequently acting as a mediator in conflicts across West Africa, including civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, and later the Mali War. His government maintained close relations with France, the United States, and neighboring governments while also cultivating informal ties with numerous armed groups operating throughout the Sahel.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, militant Islamist organizations expanded across North Africa and the Sahara. Veterans of the Algerian Civil War reorganized under the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2007 and became al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Rather than relying solely on ideological support, AQIM established itself in the Sahel through kidnapping, smuggling, extortion, and alliances with local tribes and criminal networks. Its operations increasingly extended southward into Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso. Unlike neighboring Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso experienced relatively few attacks during this period.
Despite its reputation for stability, Burkina Faso faced longstanding structural challenges that left part of the country vulnerable to future insurgency. Northern and eastern Burkina Faso experienced chronic poverty, limited access to education and healthcare, poor transportation infrastructure, high youth unemployment, and minimal state presence. Environmental factors also contributed to this growing insecurity. The Sahel experienced recurring droughts, desertification, irregular rainfall, and declining agricultural productivity throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These pressures intensified disputes between sedentary farming communities and predominantly pastoral Fulani herders. Although such conflicts had historically been managed through customary mediation, weakening local institutions and the increasing availability of firearms made disputes increasingly violent. Militant groups later exploited these local grievances by presenting themselves as protectors of these communities and offering alternative systems of justice in areas where state institutions were largely absent.
The Fulani became disproportionately affected by the expanding insurgency. Longstanding discrimination, disputes over land use, allegations of cattle theft, and accusations of collaboration with jihadists contributed to deteriorating relations between the Fulani communities and both state security forces and local self-defense militias. Islamist groups, particularly Katiba Macina, actively recruited among marginalized populations by exploiting these grievances, though recruitment also occurred among members of numerous other ethnic communities.
Following the Tuareg rebellion led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azaqad (MNLA), a military coup in Bamako weakened the Malian state, allowing Islamist organizations including Ansar Dine, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), AQIM, and later Al-Mourabitoun to seize control of much of northern Mali. Burkina Faso played a prominent diplomatic role during the conflict, hosting negotiations between the Malian government and Tuareg rebel factions while simultaneously contributing troops to the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA). Nevertheless, the conflict accelerated the flow of fighters, weapons, and extremist networks throughout the central Sahel. Militant groups increasingly established bases in the borderlands separating Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, where government authority remained weak.
The years following the Mali intervention also witnessed significant organizational changes among jihadist groups, expanding operations into areas bordering Burkina Faso. Two years later, Ansar Dine, Katiba Macina, Al-Mourabitoun, and AQIM's Sahara branch merged to form Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), creating a unified al-Qaeda affiliate across much of the Sahel.
Political instability within Burkina Faso further weakened the country's security apparatus. In October 2014, Compaoré was overthrown after attempting to amend the constitution to extend his rule. His departure ended many of the informal intelligence, mediation, and patronage networks that had contributed to regional stability in Burkina Faso. The transitional authorities inherited security institutions that had long prioritized regime protection over counterinsurgency and border security, and during this phase, in September 2015, elements of the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP), loyal to Compaoré, launched a coup against the transitional government. Although the coup collapsed within a week, it diverted precious resources away from maintaining the regional stability in Burkina Faso; and by late 2015, Islamist militants based in Mali had begun carrying out increasingly frequent cross-border raids into northern Burkina Faso. These attacks coincided with the expansion of both JNIM-affiliated factions and Islamic State-aligned militants into Burkina Faso's northern and eastern provinces. Taking advantage of weak state authority, local grievances, and very porous borders, militant organizations gradually established a sustained insurgency that expanded across much of the country over the following years, making Burkina Faso one of the principal theaters of jihadist violence in the Sahel.
Timeline
2015–2016
On 23 August 2015, the insurgency in the Maghreb spread to Burkina Faso, beginning with an attack on a gendarmerie by alleged Boko Haram members. Between August 2015 and October 2016, seven different posts were attacked across the country, leaving 15 dead and 11 injured. On 9 October, three gendarmes, one rebel, and one civilian were killed during a battle in Samorogouan, Hauts-Bassins. On 31 May 2016, three police officers were shot dead in Intangom. On 1 September 2016, a team of two to four jihadists murdered a customs officer and a civilian in Markoye, injuring three others. Two days later, Sahrawi terrorist Adnane Abou Walid Al-Sahraoui accepted responsibility for the attack.
On 15 January 2016, terrorists attacked the capital city of Ouagadougou, killing 30 people. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Mourabitoune both took responsibility.
2017
In 2016, the number of attacks spiked after a new group Ansarul Islam, led by imam Ibrahim Malam Dicko, was founded. The group is particularly active at the border territories of Mali and Burkina Faso. A large proportion of attacks have been focused on Soum province. On 16 December, Ansarul Islam killed dozens of people in the attack on Nassoumbou. On the first of January 2017, an Imam and defect from Asarul Islam was assassinated in Tongomayel. Two months later, a teacher was murdered in the village of Kourfayel Samorogouan, Soum province. On 22 March, the leader of Ansarul Islam, Harouna Dicko, was shot dead in Pétéga by security forces. By this point, a total of 70 people, the majority of them soldiers, gendarmes and police officers, had been killed in a series of 20 attacks.
Between 27 March – 10 April 2017, the governments of Mali, France, and Burkina Faso launched a joint operation named "Operation Panga", composed of 1,300 soldiers from the three countries, in Fhero forest, near the Burkina Faso-Mali border, considered a sanctuary for Ansarul Islam. On 5 April, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin detonated an improvised explosive device on a French military vehicle, injuring two people. An allied detachment found the militants during a search operation, but the armed Islamist group members attacked again, killing a French soldier. During the ensuing twelve days of searching, two jihadists were killed, eight were taken prisoner, and up to 200 suspects were arrested. The French forces quickly returned to the offensive, with several successful raids against military targets.
On 27 May, in Pétéga, a retired policeman was assassinated by militants. On the night of 2 June, at least five people, including a couple and their child, were murdered in targeted attacks across Soum province. On 9 June, military forces rounded up 74 villagers in the town of Djibo accused of collaborating with Ansarul Islam. Several of the villagers were tortured, two fatally. On 12 July, a shootout between government forces and jihadist militants took place, with no casualties.
The head of Ansarul Islam, Ibrahim Malam Dicko, was killed in June 2017. He was succeeded by Jafar Dicko. On the night of 24 July, five members of Ansarul Islam were assassinated in the villages of Ndidja, Sibé and Neyba, Soum province, possibly by the new leadership.
On 14 August 2017, a two militants entered a restaurant in Ouagadougou, murdering 18 people before they were shot dead by Burkinabè authorities.
On 17 August, a Burkinabè army vehicle rolled over an explosive in Touronata, killing three people and injuring two more. On 15 September, three men, including an imam and a local village chief, were slain by militants in Soum province. On 23 September, seven soldiers were killed in a mine explosion. Three days later, two gendarmes were killed in an ambush by jihadist militants. On 9 November, the Burkina Faso Armed Forces killed 12 jihadists in the village of Ariel.