In northern Burkina Faso, an Army airstrike the previous Friday followed an overnight ambush on a military unit by gunmen in the Sahel region. Early official reports confirm that at least 60 jihadists were killed, while eight soldiers lost their lives in the confrontation. The Burkinabe Armed Forces provided this casualty update as operations continued to unfold on the battlefield and after-action assessments began, with search efforts ongoing for missing personnel.
According to a statement from the Armed Forces Communications and Public Relations Directorate, the airstrike targeted enemy forces as they attempted to infiltrate toward the northern border. The military noted that seven armed vehicles and numerous motorcycles associated with the attackers were destroyed in the engagement, underscoring the air component’s role in disrupting enemy mobility and supply lines, as reported by the defense communications office.
The clash occurred after gunmen struck a military unit in Oudalan province, located in the northern Sahel zone, on the previous day. In the wake of the attack, troops were mobilized to the site to conduct on-site clearance and to locate missing soldiers, with subsequent updates outlining ongoing search operations and casualty management.
Initial figures from the battlefield include eight soldier fatalities and three soldiers who sustained injuries and were evacuated for medical treatment. Efforts to account for all personnel continued as operations intensified, with officials indicating that every available resource would be deployed to locate those still unaccounted for.
During a subsequent briefing, a military spokesperson affirmed that operations would keep advancing and that all feasible measures would be utilized to recover missing service members, highlighting the persistence of the mission in challenging conditions.
Burkina Faso has faced repeated jihadist assaults since 2015, with groups affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State implicated in assaults mainly in the north. This pattern of violence has influenced national security strategies and regional security cooperation as authorities pursue counterterrorism efforts across affected provinces.
The country has endured two notable military actions in 2022: one on January 24 led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and another on September 30 under Captain Abraham Traoré. The political consequences of these episodes involved leadership changes in the wake of public discontent over jihadist violence and the displacement crisis that followed, with government data indicating that roughly 1.9 million people were displaced.