The coup d'etat that unfolded Friday in Burkina Faso in many ways mirrored the one just eight months ago.
DAKAR, Senegal — First there were reports of gunfire near the presidential palace. Then state television service was briefly cut. By nightfall, a military officer in camouflage was reading an announcement: For the sake of Burkina Faso’s national security, he said, officers had seized power.
The coup d’etat that unfolded Friday in Burkina Faso in many ways mirrored the one just eight months ago, when Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba ousted its democratically elected president, Roch Marc Kaboré, in what the military said was an attempt to “” amid increasing violence. But this time, it was another military leader ousting Damiba — and again blaming the deteriorating security situation. “It feels like deja vu,” said Constantin Gouvy, a Burkina Faso researcher in Ouagadougou, the country’s capital, with the Clingendael Institute who focuses on conflict in the Sahel. “It was pretty much the same story as in January — except the only difference is that this was a coup-within-a-coup.”The soldiers who orchestrated the takeover on Friday — led by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré — said in a statement broadcast on local television that Damiba had begun to focus more on politics than on addressing the security issues that drove the January coup. Since Islamist extremists gained a foothold in the West African nation seven years ago, thousands have been killed and nearly 1 in 10 people have been displaced by violence. Last year, Burkina Faso became the epicenter of the growing security crisis in the Sahel, with its death toll from insurgent attacks surpassing that in Mali. Violence only intensified after Damiba took power, including an attack that left 79 civilians dead over the summer, a bomb that killed 35 last month and an attack on a convoy Monday by Islamist militants that the government said killed 11 soldiers and left 50 civilians missing.Gouvy said that frustration within the military about Damiba’s handling of the security situation had been brewing for months, with factions of the army hoping to see Damiba employ new counteroffensive strategies and create new alliances with international partners — especially Russia, whose help governments in West Africa have increasingly sought. At demonstrations in support of the coup Friday, some young men came carrying Russian flags.On Saturday, the military faction supporting Traoré accused Damiba of taking refuge at a French military base and organizing a counterattack —
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