DAKAR, Senegal — Mali. Chad. Guinea. Sudan.
Even before Burkina Faso’s army declared on Monday that it had toppled a democratically elected president, military officers across the region had grabbed power four times in the past 18 months — the highest number of coups in four decades.
In West Africa — from Guinea’s seaside capital, Conakry, to the eastern edge of Burkina Faso — terrain governed by soldiers now stretches nearly 1,300 miles. That creates a potential “coup bloc,” as one analyst described it.
Alliances with Western powers, particularly France, and neighboring leaders are unraveling. New partners, namely Russia, are stepping in to fill the void. And the international community is panicking over how this shift could hinder the fight against one of the world’s fastest-growing Islamist insurgencies.
“Coup leaders tend to stick together — especially in the face of sanctions from their traditional allies,” said Aanu Adeoye, a Russia-Africa researcher at the Chatham House think tank in London. “If they don’t get help from the French, for example, there is a group of Russian mercenaries waiting.”
In Burkina Faso, where the latest coup d’etat began early Sunday and climaxed less than 36 hours later with a state television announcement, fighters linked to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda have transformed the nation of 21 million over the past seven years.
What was once a calm farming state known for a prestigious African film festival is now routinely battered by extremists who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions as they seek to expand their influence.
West African militaries have said they lack the funding and weapons to tackle the growing threat on their own. Since 2013, when al-Qaeda militants tried to seize the capital of neighboring Mali, France has acted as the biggest foreign partner against the scourge, deploying roughly 5,000 troops to the region.
But after military leaders took control of Mali in August 2020 and removed the acting president in May 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a drawdown in West Africa that is expected to reduce the country’s troop strength there by about half.
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