After Mali and Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, another country further south, is bruised. The jihadist operations have now reached the Gulf of Guinea. The security situation in the Sahel Sahara has been deteriorating since 2005, a landmark year. The year of a highly publicized hostage taking in Algeria with its authors rewarded a handsome ransom paid in Mali where the hostages were freed. That same year, an isolated small Mauritanian garrison in Lemgheyti, a remote desert well, was overrun by radicals.

The renewed activities of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), of its branches and of groups linked to this terrorist organization, are of particular significance. They coincide, on the one hand, with the third anniversary of the launching of Operation Serval and, on the other hand, with the recent attacks in Paris claimed by Daesh or the Islamic State (IS).

 

The 16 January 2016 massacre was a tragic wakeup call on Ouagadougou, the Burkina Faso capital. Thirty people were murdered during a horrendous assault. Much more were wounded. Material destructions at both sites, the Splendid hotel and Café Cappuccino, are huge and the population, local and foreigners alike, is stunned and deeply traumatized. After a string of bloody terrorist attacks throughout 2015 in Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, legitimate questions cry for responses.