We’ve verified footage shared online by fighters from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), one of Africa’s deadliest militant groups and affiliated with al-Qaeda, showing their assault on a Burkinabe military base near the town of Dargo in Burkina Faso’s Centre-Nord region.
The jihadist group has been involved in a long-running insurgency against the Russian-backed military junta which seized power in 2022 amid a wave of coups in the West African Sahel region.
The videos show multiple phases of the assault with large numbers of fighters seen approaching the base on motorbikes, firing their machine guns, and later moving freely in the camp once resistance has collapsed. Two dead Burkinabe soldiers are visible, though residents report that around 50 were killed in the attack on 28 July.
We confirmed the location by matching distinctive landmarks visible in the footage, including a telecom tower, to satellite imagery. We also carried out reverse image searches to confirm that the videos were posted this week.
Despite the military junta’s pledge to crush the Islamist insurgency when it seized power, large swathes of the country remain beyond government control, with other groups – some aligned with the Islamic State group – also active.
The Sahel is now the “epicentre of global terrorism” and accounts for over half of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide according to the Global Terrorism Index.
