Burkina Faso has become a frequent target for terrorist attacks. But while jihadist activity was previously confined to the north of the country, it is now moving to the east, a region already suffering from rampant organised crime.

On September 5, a group of Burkinabésoldiers were travelling to defuse mines laid by jihadist groups when, in the eastern town of Kabonga, they were hit by an improvised explosive device (IED). Two were killed and six were injured, while the perpetrators of the attack have not been identified.

This was the third deadly IED attack in a month in eastern Burkina Faso. “This is by no means a new phenomenon,” said Sidi Kounté, a sociologist specialising in jihadism in the Sahel. “But, since February, these attacks have become more and more frequent – daily even,” he told FRANCE 24.

Attacks on security forces ‘suggest jihadist group’

“We’re asking ourselves a lot of questions,” said Rodrigue Tagnan, an independent journalist focused on the Sahel, in an interview with FRANCE 24. “For example, we don’t know who the perpetrators of these attacks really are.”

This is a pressing question, especially in light of the fact that no one has claimed responsibility for these attacks. However, “the use of IEDs and the attacks targeting the security forces, police units and police stations all suggest that jihadist groups are responsible, although we should keep an open mind,” argued William Assanvo, an analyst at the ISS, a Pretoria-based think-tank specialising in African security and defence.

“The lack of any claims for these attacks might constitute a strategic move by a new group that is moving in and doesn’t yet have a solid base, but there’s no doubt that there’s an active group in the east of Burkina Faso,” Kounté added.

Attacks on capital

Since the fall of President Blaise Compaoré’s iron rule in October 2014, Burkina Faso – erstwhile relatively secure – has become a prime target for jihadist movements. However, these attacks were mainly confined to the north of the country, and were often perpetrated by terrorists crossing the border from neighbouring Mali. Until January 2016 – when 30 people were killed in an attack on Capuccino, a café popular with expatriates in the capital Ouagadougou. The terrorist group AQIM claimed responsibility.

In March 2018, a coordinated pair of terrorist attacks struck the French embassy in Ouagadougou and the General Staff of the Burkinabé armed forces, killing eight soldiers and wounding 60 people – and exposing the vulnerability of the fledgling democracy, after 27 years of Compaoré’s strongman rule.

The attack was claimed by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM). Led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, the notorious Touareg separatist turned jihadist and the most wanted man in the Sahel, the GSIM was formed out of a merger between Ag Ghaly’s Ansar Dine group, Al Qaeda in the Sahel and a range of smaller militant groups in Mali and Burkina Faso.

But, thanks to the efforts of anti-terrorist local militias and French, Malian and Burkinabé forces, “GSIM have moved to new areas, probably including eastern Burkina Faso”, according to Kounté.

East neglected by central government

A forest region bordering Ghana, Togo, Benin and Niger, eastern Burkina Faso has long been regarded as a bastion of organised crime. Thanks to the central government’s neglect of the region, self-defence militias known as “koglweogo” have become the guarantors of security for the local population. And thanks to the dense forests and the lack of adequate road networks, the area is practically inaccessible for national security forces.

Thus, eastern Burkina Faso is fertile ground for jihadists. “All places where jihadists can go and settle have been abandoned by the national authorities,” Kounté noted. “The big, thick forests give jihadists a place to organise themselves and put plans in place,” Assanvo added.

A response from the Burkinabé government is long overdue. In a memo on the security situation in the east, relayed by local media, the regional police chief Commissioner Karim Drabo warned that “if security forces do not respond vigorously, the attackers will have time to settle and to spread IEDs throughout the areas they have occupied […] and they are gaining ground”.

But, according to Sidi Kounté, the Burkinabé army is already “overwhelmed by having to fight on numerous fronts”, while lacking sufficient manpower and equipment.

Alternatively, Burkina Faso could draw on the G5 Sahel, the French-backed military group set up in 2014 to combat armed groups in the region, combining troops from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. But, except for the latter two, these countries’ militaries “aren’t up to scratch”, François-Xavier Freland, an independent journalist specialising in the Sahel, argued in an interview with FRANCE 24 in April.

France 24

A “coup d’état” has been launched by the White House against the US President Donald Trump, according to Stephen Lendman, an American journalist, writer and political analyst based in Chicago.

“What’s going on is a slow motion coup d’état to oust him from office,” Lendman said.

The New York Times published an Op-Ed by an anonymous writer on Wednesday that claimed senior officials within the Trump administration were weary of the president’s impulsive nature and were quietly working against him.

The article stated cabinet members had even considered invoking the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution to oust the president.

In an interview with Press TV on Friday, Lendman said the NYT article was part of a coup aimed to oust Trump.

He said that the Op-Ed aimed to trash Trump and criticize him for wanting better relations with Russia and North Korea while being very anti-Iran.

Lendman said, instead, the article should have criticized Trump for his many mistakes, including launching “imperial wars” and giving “tax cuts to the rich” and “destroying social justice in the country”.

Lendman believes the mounting pressure on Trump is paving the way for his early exit from office.

Insanity must end  

Trump has been hit by numerous scandals since he entered office in January 2017.

The scandals surround illegal payments to playmates, collusion with Russians, firing staff, attacks on adversaries, support for supremacist, trade wars, exiting the climate agreement and Iran nuclear deal, etc.

His presidency has been described as the most insane administration in the history of the United States.

Many political and media pundits are of the opinion that as early as next month, in November, Trump may either resign from office or face impeachment.

If the Democrats gain majority in November’s midterm congressional elections, Trump’s impeachment is certain, according to Vice President Mike Pence.

Either way, impeachment or resignation, pundits say Trump must go.

An eye-opening book by renowned investigative reporter Bob Woodward, this week, described the White House under Trump as an insane “crazytown.”

The Woodward book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” reported that senior officials stole documents from the president Oval Office to stop the president from acting on his impulses, reinforcing the assertions in the NYT Op-Ed.

It is often hard to figure out precisely what President Donald Trump’s security strategy is. He seldom talks about U.S. national interests and priorities other than trade. His broad regional policies are vague or missing altogether. This is particularly true for Africa. Nearly halfway through his term, Trump has made no speeches on Africa, has not visited the continent, and was slow to appoint an assistant secretary of state for African affairs, America’s key policy coordinator for that part of the world. All this suggests that after 50 years of modest involvement in African security, the United States may be writing the continent off.

Africa has always been at the fringe of American global strategy. The United States came late to the region, only showing an interest when the European colonial empires began crumbling in the 1960s and 1970s. Even then, Washington’s motives were mostly to check the Soviet Union and China. The fear was that if communism dominated the continent, it might starve the West of Africa’s raw materials, particularly vital minerals like cobalt, manganese and platinum. However preposterous this idea looks in hindsight, many American political leaders bought it and set the United States on a course where all that mattered was that African governments were relatively stable and anti-communist or, at least, non-aligned. Being autocratic or pathologically corrupt was not an impediment to cordial ties with Washington.

The collapse of the Soviet Union initially left the United States without a central purpose in Africa. Washington did welcome the subsequent movement toward democracy and responsive government on the continent, providing some support. But the seminal events for American policy in Africa during the 1990s were humanitarian disasters generated by African conflicts, particularly in Somalia and Rwanda. While neither Americans nor Africans wanted large numbers of U.S. troops on the continent, the United States developed a number of training and educational programs to help African militaries and governments build their own capability for crisis management, conflict resolution and peacekeeping. The hope was that Africans themselves could prevent or manage future humanitarian disasters.

After the 9/11 attacks, American security policy in Africa shifted almost entirely to counterterrorism. Once again, Washington was willing to overlook undemocratic practices so long as African governments promoted stability and opposed violent jihadism. Believing that economic growth could undercut the resentment and anger that radical jihadists exploited, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama also implemented modest U.S. assistance programs.

Despite that, violent jihadism grew deeper roots in the weakly governed northern half of the African continent, from Mali to Libya, and has even established a foothold in the southeast, in Mozambique. Boko Haram, a Nigerian movement that, like many African extremist groups, spread to neighboring nations, has proven devilishly difficult to eradicate. The same holds for al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia but also threatens Kenya and other nearby states. And across the region of Africa known as the Sahel, which lies between the Sahara desert to the north and the savannah belt of the continent to the south, a patchwork of extremists—part revolutionary jihadists, part heavily armed criminal gangs—destabilizes governments and preys on local populations.

Greater Chinese and Russian involvement in Africa, whether economic or in the security sector, will not endanger U.S. national interests.

Today, the way forward isn’t clear. For decades, the United States considered aid for African security a long-term investment in the continent’s political and economic potential, but Trump sees things differently. Given Africa’s limited current economic importance to the United States, he seems satisfied to sustain some small military training missions and keep the jihadists on their heels with drone attacks, even while withdrawing many of the U.S. special operations forces that had been supporting African counterterrorism operations since 9/11.

While Obama was often criticized for downsizing America’s security commitments around the world, there has been little mention of Trump’s move to ignore Africa, outside the very small community of regional experts. While China, with its growing need for markets and raw materials, has greatly expanded its economic presence on the continent and undertaken a greater security role, the Trump administration shows little concern. Even Russia’s return to Africa, including to former Soviet-aligned states like Angola, has raised few eyebrows in Washington. For Trump, limited trade means limited interest.

Ultimately, though, Trump’s disengagement from Africa may be the right move. Greater Chinese and Russian involvement there, whether economic or in the security sector, will not endanger U.S. national interests. African leaders aren’t worried at all about great-power competition, so they won’t refuse to sell resources for political reasons. African jihadists, while cancerous, cannot create a state that might provide sanctuary for transnational terrorism, particularly while hiding from American drones and air strikes. Meanwhile, African security services have become much more effective. And while the inability of many African countries to generate enough jobs to employ their rapidly expanding populations generates serious migration problems for Europe, there is little the United States can do about it.

The continent has far to go to fully reach its immense potential and, from South Africa to Algeria, still suffers from corruption, sectarian conflict, uneven economic growth and the devastating effects of climate change. But it has made great strides in recent years, economically and politically. Security is fragile in many African nations, but getting better in others. Most Africans would welcome increased U.S. economic assistance, but not more active American involvement in their own affairs.  So yes, Trump seems to be largely writing the continent off. But ultimately it may not matter to either the United States or Africa, as each charts its own way into the future.

Culled from World Politics Review

US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has called on senior administration officials to oust US President Donald Trump following the release of another damning report about Trump’s impulsive nature.

A Wednesday op-ed in The New York Times, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” written by an anonymous official, described how the Trump administration had been stopping the chief executive from making detrimental mistakes due to his poor morals and unruly behavior.

“If senior administration officials think the president of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment,” Warren, who  is a potential 2020 presidential candidate, told media on Thursday.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution allows the vice president and cabinet officials to write to Congress if they believe the president is not capable of fulfilling his duties. In that event, the vice president would assume presidential duties.

“What kind of a crisis do we have if senior officials believe that the president can’t do his job and then refuse to follow the rules that have been laid down in the Constitution?” Warren asked. “They can’t have it both ways.”

The 1967 amendment allows the temporary transfer of power in case the president is unable to do his job. The temporary transfer becomes permanent after Congress approves a subsequent vote that states that the president lacks the ability to carry out his duties.

The op-ed was published, a day after a book from renowned investigative journalist Bob Woodward’s named Fear: Trump in the White House came out.

The book paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency in which Trump’s inner circle tries to control Trump’s impulses and prevent detrimental decisions by the president.

It also describes how Trump administration officials would remove important documents from his desk to prevent him from signing.

Woodward describes the situation in the White House as “an administrative coup d’etat” launched by the top officials.

Source: Presstv