Gambiaj.com – (OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso) – As discontent mounts within the army after a terrorist attack that left more than 100 dead, the head of the junta disappeared for 48 hours.

Is Captain Ibrahim Traoré faltering? Since the explosion of a rocket on Wednesday, June 12, near the presidency located in downtown Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, rumors reporting a growing protest within the army against the president of the transition persist.

In recent days, the junta’s communications teams have worked to minimize the explosion, immediately described as a simple “shooting incident” by national television on its Facebook page. “The projectile unfortunately fell within the national television premises, causing two minor injuries which were quickly taken care of by the presidential health service,” underlined the state media. Meanwhile, Captain Traoré was exfiltrated from the ongoing council of ministers at the presidency. Following this, the chief of staff of the armed forces ordered the “general alerting of all detachments,” according to an internal message leaked on social networks.

On May 17, similar confusion reigned after an exchange of fire at the presidency that state media also described as a “shooting incident.” Several security sources mentioned a change of mood among the military.

This time, the authorities remained silent. For 48 hours, Captain Traoré did not appear in public, fueling rumors about his possible exfiltration from the capital following an attempted coup. One hypothesis was that he took refuge in the Loumbila camp, about twenty kilometers from Ouagadougou, where Wagner’s Russian paramilitaries are based.

Two days later, he appeared serene and smiling in a video broadcast on national television on Friday, June 14. The head of the junta was seen donating blood in premises presented as those of the presidential palace on World Blood Donor Day.

However, on social media, Internet users doubted the authenticity of these images, as well as those broadcast the same day by pro-Russian black supremacist Kemi Seba on his X account (formerly Twitter), of his meeting with the head of the junta. The presence of Captain Traoré at the Tabaski prayer on the grounds of the University of Ouagadougou, relayed on Sunday, June 16, by several state media with supporting photos, was also questioned by several local sources.

Were some of these photos doctored and published by the authorities to reassure the Burkinabés? In Ouagadougou, sources who dare to speak about the reality of the political and security situation in the country are becoming rarer as the junta accelerates its authoritarian turn. All fear being threatened, kidnapped, incarcerated, or forcibly sent to the front by the junta, as dozens of critical voices have been in recent months.

Several West African and European security sources working in Burkina Faso confirmed to Monde Afrique the existence of a growing revolt within the army against Captain Traoré. This discontent was affirmed following the jihadist attack on June 11 against the military camp of Mansila in the northeast of the country.

At least 107 soldiers were killed in this large-scale assault, claimed by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, affiliated with Al-Qaeda) on Sunday, June 16, but for which the regime had not said a word.

“This lack of consideration has outraged some soldiers and fueled frustration that has been building for several months. More and more soldiers are opposing Ibrahim Traoré’s military strategy and his desire to cling to power while they die by the dozens, by the hundreds at the front,” underlined a Western security source based in the Sahel.

Ibrahim Traoré knows better than anyone that his poor management of the security situation could be fatal to him. The motive was one of the main reasons invoked during the overthrows of the last two heads of state – elected president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in January 2022, then lieutenant-colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba in September of the same year. Will the memory of these precedents be enough to rule out attempts at a coup, when the junta has already announced that it has foiled several since coming to power? Within the army, fault lines are multiplying.

In recent months, several security and humanitarian sources in the Sahel reported that the “Traoré method”—including forced disappearances of officers deemed protesters, clan management of the state apparatus, and abuses against civilians in the framework of anti-terrorist military operations, such as the deployment of Russian paramilitaries—has not been unanimous within the army.

On Saturday, June 15, and Sunday, June 16, three successive landings on the tarmac of Ouagadougou airport of the same Russian Ilyushin II-76 plane coming from Gao, a town in northern Mali where Russian mercenaries are also deployed, continued to fuel the climate of tension and uncertainty.

According to flight tracking specialists who reported these aerial rotations on the social network X, the same Ilyushin II-76 had already transported Wagner mercenaries to Africa in the past. While a first wave of around a hundred Russian paramilitaries landed in the Burkinabé capital at the end of January, several international security and humanitarian sources now fear that the junta is only seeking to strengthen its protection against any attempt at overthrow within the troop.

Source: Le Monde