SUMMARY

The Burkinabe Islamist group Ansaroul Islam was formed in late 2016. From its inception it carried out attacks not only on state targets, but also on civilians. While the group itself has not publically stated its reasons for targeting the civilian population, patterns in the violence, and reports from what has been said during some attacks has provided some insights.

The group seems to favor targeted killings of certain categories of targets. For one, before his death in May 2017, Malam Dicko, founder of the group, appears to have wanted to eliminate defectors from the organization. By some assumed to be the result of a strong urge for reprisal and account settling, this was most likely also a strategy to deny the security forces, potential informers. Relatedly, civilians suspected of being government informers were also targeted.

Furthermore, the group carried out several attacks on schools, and assassinated a number of teachers. Some claim that this was most likely tied to the settling of accounts, since many teachers had supported Dicko when was a preacher in Soum, his home area, but had chosen not to join him when he launched the armed struggle. However, there were also indications that the reason behind the targeting of schools and teachers went deeper than this; there were reports of armed men – thought to be Ansaroul Islam members – demanding that schools start teaching in Arabic rather than French, or suffer the consequences.

Aside from its main area of operation, in Burkina Faso’s northern Soum province, the group also carried out attacks across the border in Mali.

Ansaroul Islam first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2017, when the one-sided violence resulted in more than 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached on 28 September that year when the group shot dead three villagers in Touronata village in Burkina Faso.