Dozens of people were killed and injured Friday in twin attacks on the French embassy and Burkina Faso’s military headquarters in the country’s capital Ouagadougou.
The government said the attack on the military was a suicide car bombing and that a planned meeting of the G5 Sahel regional anti-terrorism force may have been the target.
Officials from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger were at the meeting, representing the G5 Sahel nations who have launched a joint military force to combat militants on the southern rim of the Sahara.
Eight members of the armed forces were killed by the blast and the parallel attack on the French embassy, while 80 were wounded, said Security Minister Clement Sawadogo. The minister said eight attackers had been shot dead.
"The vehicle was packed with explosives" and caused "huge damage", Sawadogo said, adding that it was a suicide attack.
Three security sources, two in France and one in West Africa, told AFP that at least 28 people were killed in the attack on the military HQ alone.
French government sources said there were no French casualties and described the situation in Ouagadougou as "under control".
"Our country was once again the target of dark forces," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said in a statement.
The violence began mid-morning when heavy gunfire broke out in the center of the Burkinabe capital.
Witnesses said five armed men got out of a car and opened fire on passersby before heading towards the French embassy.
Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that there were four gunmen not five.
At the same time, the bomb went off near the headquarters of the Burkinabe armed forces and the French cultural center, about a kilometer from the site of the first attack, other witnesses said.
Sawadogo said the G5 meeting was supposed to have been held at the headquarters but had been moved to another room.
"Perhaps it was the target. We do not know at the moment. In any case the room was literally destroyed by the explosion," the minister said.
The attacks drew wide condemnation.
An official source at the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed the Kingdom's rejection of all types of terrorism and extremism, wherever it takes place.
The source offered the Kingdom's condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Burkina Faso.
