How Ansar al Islam Gains Popular Support in Burkina Faso

The movement that includes al Qaeda and the Islamic State is spreading across West Africa. Salafi-jihadi groups in this region aim to establish governance in line with their extremist interpretation of Islam and to advance the ultimate triumph of the global Salafi-jihadi movement.[1] They are taking advantage of failures of governance, social breakdown, and local grievances to establish relationships with local populations—an approach that has been highly successful for their comrades in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. Communities under pressure accept and sometimes support the Salafi-jihadi presence as a means of survival even when they do not accept the groups’ ideology.[2] The Salafi-jihadi groups’ under-the-radar approach masks the breadth and depth of their penetration and obscures the long-term threat they pose to the region and to the U.S. and its partners. Ansar al Islam’s activities in Burkina Faso demonstrate this phenomenon and show how permitting instability and conflict to fester for years—as in Mali—allows Salafi-jihadi groups to spread beyond the immediate conflict zone to infect neighboring states.

Ansar al Islam is a Salafi-jihadi group based in northern Burkina Faso with ties to al Qaeda and Islamic State groups in the Sahel. A popular Burkinabe preacher from the northern Soum Province, Malam Ibrahim Dicko, fought with al Qaeda–linked groups in Mali in 2012 or 2013 as many others did.[3] He returned to Burkina Faso in 2016 and transformed a charitable organization he had been running into an armed group.[4] He lost many followers by militarizing but retained a core cadre. Dicko launched an insurgency in December 2016 in response to security forces’ operations in his hometown.[5] His group has since taken de facto control of parts of northern Burkina Faso. Dicko’s participation in the Mali conflict radicalized him and developed his fighting and organizational skills, which he used to operate a Salafi-jihadi fighting force in his home country. His brother succeeded him after his death. Malam Dicko’s story is but one of many playing out across the Muslim world as fighters return home from conflicts in Mali, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Poor social and economic conditions in northern Burkina Faso made populations vulnerable to Ansar al Islam’s efforts. The Fulani ethnic group, a minority in Burkina Faso overall, is the majority in Soum Province and other northern areas.[6] Fulani face discrimination at the state level, and many in the north lack access to state services.[7] Class-based tensions exist both within the Fulani community and between ethnic groups. The absence of strong religious authorities and competition between traditional chiefs created dysfunctional local governance in Soum Province.[8] The systematic marginalization of the Fulani, coupled with weak security and justice sectors, generated conditions that Dicko could exploit.[9] Those conditions have been present for a long time and do not inevitably create a Salafi-jihadi group. The threat comes from those conditions combined with acute drivers of instability and the skillful approach many Salafi-jihadi groups use today.

Several drivers of instability compelled the population in northern Burkina Faso to accept Ansar al Islam.[10] The first is security force abuses, particularly by the gendarmerie. Abuses, such as the killing or humiliation of Fulani community elders, incentivize young men to defend their communities and seek revenge.[11] They find the means to do so through Ansar al Islam. The Burkinabe judicial system has not addressed the grievances from these abuses.[12] Further, foreign and domestic pressure for a strong counterterrorism response has led to harsher policing and more human rights abuses against the local population in Burkina Faso.[13]

The second driver is an increased local awareness of resource predation as economic gaps grow. The expansion of industrial mining has not improved local living standards.[14] Exploitative patron-client relationships have heightened the perception that the national Burkinabe government and foreign companies are stealing local wealth.[15] Ansar al Islam can provide a sense of dignity and protection for community resources by attacking the symbols of exploitation.

The third driver is the Salafi-jihadi mobilization within the conflict in Mali, specifically the efforts by Mali-based Salafi-jihadi groups to mobilize the population through the Fulani identity. This external driver was required for Ansar al Islam to take root. Burkina Faso’s problems cannot be separated from Mali’s, and the existence of conflict in Mali will derail attempts to counter the threat in Burkina Faso alone. Ansar al Islam’s leaders learned on Mali’s battlefield. The group cooperates with and receives training and operational support from other Salafi-jihadi groups in Mali, including Jama’a Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS).[16] JNIM and ISGS have shifted progressively into Burkina Faso in the past two years and are directly contributing to Ansar al Islam’s insurgency.[17]

Ansar al Islam navigated the local conditions and exploited these drivers of instability to gain influence over the population. The drivers—security force abuses, resource predation, and the Salafi-jihadi mobilization in Mali—enabled Ansar al Islam to use both coercive and persuasive means to develop support. The group’s use of violence attracts those seeking to defend their community from perceived affronts against it by the security forces and foreign companies. Ansar al Islam has also used force to drive out security forces to secure its own position. The group has built a narrative around the grievances the population has experienced to align itself with marginalized communities and present itself as a solution. Ansar al Islam implements social policies that address some of these grievances while establishing an extremist form of governance.

Threatening and Using Violence

Ansar al Islam uses both the threat and the application of violence to expel or suppress rivals, including state representatives and local officials. The population faces limited options: acquiesce to Ansar al Islam, support often equally harsh and frequently absent security forces, or relocate. The group kidnaps and assassinates educators, elected representatives, religious and traditional leaders, and security officials, especially non-Fulani.[18] The climate of insecurity deters security forces from entering Ansar al Islam’s area of operations.[19] The group fosters this climate by attacking security forces directly, including those responding to attacks.[20] Many Ansar al Islam attacks and patrols are intended to intimidate the population and secure Ansar al Islam’s position, either by deterring cooperation with security forces,[21] suppressing dissent or defection,[22] or controlling lines of communication.[23] This campaign of attacks serves immediate objectives, such as suppressing armed resistance and spying, but also terrorizes the population into accepting a mode of governance that it would otherwise reject.

Certain attacks directly support Ansar al Islam’s efforts to appeal to popular grievances and institute social policies. The group has sought to stoke ethnic tensions and cause non-Fulani to leave the area by undermining their economic activity and preventing the formation of ethnic self-defense militias.[24] It has apologized for mistaken killings to justify its coercive practices to the population.[25] Ansar al Islam has likely attacked mining sites as part of an ongoing campaign by multiple Salafi-jihadi groups to expel the Burkinabe state and foreign companies—an effort to capitalize on local backlash to resource predation and gain access to mineral resources.[26] Some attacks destroy institutions that Ansar al Islam seeks to eliminate or replace, including schools and bars, or eradicate government programs, such as ambulance services and vaccination campaigns.[27]

Appealing to Local Grievances

Ansar al Islam members appeal to the grievances parts of the population have experienced through religious arguments. This preaching, which occurs on local radio and in person, seeks to attract recruits and generate support for the group’s social policies.[28] Sermons focus on equality between the minority elites and the majority underclass within the Fulani community.[29] This narrative aims to mobilize lower classes and youth against traditional elites. Appealing on the basis of class has allowed Ansar al Islam to recruit non-Fulani individuals.[30] The group has claimed religious expertise to challenge the inherited authority of local religious elites.[31]

The group’s narratives also seek to capitalize on ethnic tensions and anti-state and anti-foreigner sentiment.[32] Dicko wanted to reinstate a pseudo-historical Fulani caliphate and also spoke out against the “Mossi state,” referring to Burkina Faso’s largest ethnic group.[33] Ansar al Islam advocates for the elimination of state taxes on religious grounds, tapping into local backlash against the state’s perceived plundering of the north. Its preaching similarly accuses Westerners of looting Burkinabe wealth and characterizes Burkinabe as the “rimaibe of the whites,” referring to the Fulani underclass.[34]

Ansar al Islam’s emphasis on resonant local grievances likely makes its religious language more palatable to a population not otherwise highly receptive to its extreme version of Islamic practice and belief. Using that religious language to convey grievances over an extended time likely creates space for further religious indoctrination—serving the Salafi-jihadi movement’s long-term objective.

Implementing Social Policies

Ansar al Islam is implementing new social policies in northern Burkina Faso to gain support from some demographics and remake society over time. The group’s use of violence and promotion of religious narratives support this effort. Ansar al Islam uses religious justification to ban ceremonies that enrich traditional elites, undermining those authorities and gaining support from poorer people. Marriage parties, which included payments to local leaders, have become rare.[35] Again, the religious justifications Ansar al Islam presents may matter less to the local population than the benefits they gain from the disruption of practices that oppressed them.

Ansar al Islam has also required women to wear the hijab, limited their movement outside the home, and moved to ban music, smoking, and football.[36] The group is replacing the education system in areas it controls to indoctrinate the population and eliminate Western influence symbolized by French-language education.[37] Ansar al Islam uses financial leverage, including bribery[38] and paying off debts,[39] alongside violence to enforce its rules. These policies may cause some backlash because they disrupt practices that even poor locals prefer to engage in on purely religious grounds. Ansar al Islam’s coercive power, paired with the benefits of its changes for some parts of the population, likely gives it the space to pursue some non-pragmatic ideological undertakings.

Implications

Understanding how Ansar al Islam has built popular support is necessary to evaluate the counterstrategy. The current strategy focuses on targeting members of the group and disrupting its operations through military actions by the Burkinabe security forces, with assistance from Western partners and some cooperation with neighboring states. This strategy has reinforced one of the drivers of support to Ansar al Islam by relying on Burkinabe security force operations. A more refined and disciplined military approach might break the cycle of persecution that has trapped the population while still degrading Ansar al Islam. The Burkinabe state must also take steps to resolve the perceived grievances of the Fulani. For example, it might begin to address the structural inequalities within the state. Finally, the strategy must recognize the spillover effect from Mali.

This case matters far beyond Burkina Faso. Salafi-jihadi groups around the world—in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and elsewhere—employ their own means and methods to take control of vulnerable populations. These conflicts, like Mali’s, fester and spread to new areas. This expansion of the Salafi-jihadi base[40] underpins a global Salafi-jihadi insurgency that, if left unchecked, will continue to inflict harm on Muslim and non-Muslim communities alike. The Salafi-jihadi movement’s overarching aims remain the establishment of full control over the entire Muslim world and the destruction of Western secular states. The U.S. may find it easy to ignore the growth of this movement in such covert ways and such obscure places—but it does so at its peril.