Attack on army base fuels Burkina Faso mutiny rumours

An attack that reportedly killed more than 100 soldiers on an army base in Burkina Faso has snowballed into speculation about unrest in the security forces, in a country where the military has been in power since 2022.

The leader of the military junta has since appeared on state TV in an attempt to debunk the rumours.

Burkina Faso has been battling Islamist insurgents for several years and about half the country is outside government control.

Jihadist group Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has said it was behind last Tuesday’s attack in the northern town of Mansila.

The following day, there was an explosion near the headquarters of the state television.

What happened in Mansila?

According to several reports, armed men attacked the military base, located near the border with Niger, on 11 June.

Around 100 soldiers were killed and many others were missing, reports say, adding that several hundred civilians fled Mansila for neighbouring towns in search of safety.

Five days after the attack, JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate, said it was behind the attack, and that dozens of soldiers were killed.

The group shared a video showing a large amount of weapons and ammunition that it says were captured during the assault.

There are also videos of JNIM fighters riding motorbikes and shooting relentlessly in a remote village of mud-walled buildings.

The BBC has not been able to verify the video.

The armed forces have since blockaded Mansila and it is not possible to enter the city without a military convoy.

Junta leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré broke his silence on the attack on Thursday, 10 days after it happened.

He said the military had launched an operation after the assault, and sent reinforcement troops.

But he did not address JNIM’s allegation that it carried out the attack.

What about the explosion at the state broadcaster?

A day after the Mansila attack, a rocket hit the parking area of state TV Radiodiffusion Télévision Burkinabé (RTB) in the capital, Ouagadougou.

On its Facebook page, RTB described the event as a “shooting incident” that resulted in “two minor injuries, quickly taken care of by the presidential health service”.

Was the RTB incident part of a mutiny?

Even before the Mansila and RTB attacks, there was already speculation about internal tensions within the military.

Along with the public, soldiers had expressed frustration at the government’s failure to contain the security crisis after a series of high-profile attacks.

Like its counterparts in Mali and…