Category: World

In a message posted via the Telegram app, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and head of the Wagner Group, a shadowy mercenary company that Western experts view as a Kremlin proxy, said Traoré’s power grab “was necessary.” He described the previously little-known captain as “a truly worthy and courageous son of his motherland” and cast the grave security troubles wracking the West African nation as part of France’s imperial legacy.

“The people of Burkina Faso were under the yoke of the colonialists, who robbed the people as well as played their vile games, trained, supported gangs of bandits and caused much grief to the local population,” Prigozhin said. Scenes of jubilant pro-coup supporters in the capital Ouagadougou showed some waving Russian flags, a reflection both of the reach of Russian propaganda networks as well as popular frustration with a status quo some link to Western policy. That includes a decade-long French counterterrorism campaign in the nations of the central Sahel, the vast sweep of semiarid land south of the Sahara desert.

Burkina Faso is in the grips of a harrowing security crisis. Islamist militants control swaths of the country. Thousands of civilians have been killed this year alone, while some 2 million people — a fifth of the Burkinabe population — have been displaced by the fighting. Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the previous coup leader who Traoré supplanted, himself seized power in January on grounds that the government was failing the military in its battles against insurgents.

“Faced with the deteriorating situation, we tried several times to get Damiba to refocus the transition on the security question,” Traoré said in a signed statement read out by another officer on state television after the latest coup.

In bloody battle for Bakhmut, Russian mercenaries eye a symbolic prize

Experts now see Russia exploiting the vacuum. Since at least 2018, the Wagner Group has been enlisted to help fragile African regimes crack down on Islamist extremist insurgencies. In the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Libya and now Mali, Russian military contractors have operated on the ground alongside local forces. In some instances, they’ve been linked to reports of human rights abuses and possible war crimes.

Since the Sept. 30 coup in Burkina Faso, there have been growing suggestions that the new junta will consider forging a new “strategic partnership” with Moscow and pivot away from earlier understandings with Western powers. Prigozhin’s rhetoric may be self-serving, but also could indicate a growing Russian influence.

“Rather than being a transparent partner and improving security, Wagner exploits client states who pay for their heavy-handed security services in gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources — this is part of Wagner Group’s business model,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told a Security Council briefing earlier this month. “We know these ill-gotten gains are used to fund Moscow’s war machine in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine.”

“In previous coups Russia has tried to position itself as an accidental beneficiary of regime changes,” Samuel Ramani, an analyst at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC. “This time around Russia is a lot more proactive in support for the coup, and that has led to speculation that Russia has played a co-ordinating role.”

Though it’s unclear what actual presence Russia does or will have in Burkina Faso, the coup sets the stage for a new chapter in a broader geopolitical contest. Some African nations, including a handful of states in West Africa, have conspicuously backed Russia at the United Nations and in other forums as Moscow ducks international censure for its invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine.

Civilian killings soar as Russian mercenaries join fight in West Africa

“What we see is that the Sahel is becoming a battlefield for the rivalry between Russia and the West,” said Jean-Hervé Jezequel, Sahel director for the International Crisis Group, in a podcast episode recently released by the think tank. “This is an additional layer in an already complex crisis,” he added, suggesting that great power competition in this part of the world would only make things more difficult for local actors struggling to forge peace.

The struggle is already acute in cyberspace, with Kremlin-linked online accounts animating the discourse across the region. “Pro-Russian networks today are especially targeting West and Central African nations grappling with conflict,” my colleague Danielle Paquette reported earlier this year. “Among them are Burkina Faso and Mali, which both face fast-growing insurgencies and have endured a combined three” — now, four — “coups d’état since 2020. They’re also home to deep reserves of gold and other precious minerals that analysts say Moscow covets.”

Mali, Burkina Faso’s larger neighbor, provides the sharpest illustration of the dynamics. For close to a decade, it was the main staging ground for a French military mission aimed at beating back the advances of extremist militant factions, including al-Qaeda, Islamic State-linked groups and ethnic Tuareg separatists. But after initial successes, the operation bogged down and anti-French sentiment grew.

The last French detachments left Mali for neighboring Niger earlier this year, with the prevailing regime in Bamako — also installed after a military coup — cheering their departure. Mali has more publicly turned toward Russia in years. In September at the U.N. General Assembly, Malian Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maiga celebrated the “exemplary and fruitful cooperation between Mali and Russia” and said it spoke of a larger transition in a region long dominated by France, the former colonial power. “Move on from the colonial past and hear the anger, the frustration, the rejection that is coming up from the African cities and countryside, and understand that this movement is inexorable,” Maiga said.

Wagner forces are active in the country, operating alongside Malian soldiers. They have been linked to a string of civilian massacres, including the extrajudicial execution of some 300 people in a village in central Mali in March.

“What we observe is that elsewhere in Africa today there are worrying deployments of the Wagner militias, and we have been able to see on the ground that the effects of these militias lead to abuses of the population — we saw crimes that unfolded in Mali, in the Central African Republic, in Mozambique — also the pillaging of natural resources, and most of all, zero effectiveness in the fight against terrorism,” said Anne-Claire Legendre, French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, to the Associated Press last week.

Critics, of course, can also point to France’s limited efficacy. “In the eyes of the Malian government … the French-led system of stabilization has not prevented the expansion of the jihadists in the Sahel,” Jezequel said. “In 10 years, the presence of the jihadists has expanded dramatically.”

The events were stunning even for Brazilians who have grown increasingly accustomed to far-right politicians and activists thumbing their noses at Supreme Court justices, and comes just days before Brazilians go to the polls to vote for president.

The Supreme Court has sought to rein in the spread of disinformation and anti-democratic rhetoric ahead of the Oct. 30 vote, often inviting the ire of Bolsonaro’s base that decries such actions as censorship. As part of those efforts, Jefferson was jailed preventatively for making threats against the court’s justices.

Jefferson in January received permission to serve his preventative arrest under house arrest, provided he complies with certain conditions. Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in a decision published Sunday that Jefferson has repeatedly violated those terms — most recently by using social media to compare one female justice to a prostitute — and ordered he be returned to prison.

“I didn’t shoot anyone to hit them. No one. I shot their car and near them. There were four of them, they ran, I said, ’Get out, because I’m going get you,’” Jefferson said in the video. “I’m setting my example, I’m leaving my seed planted: resist oppression, resist tyranny. God bless Brazil.”

Later, Brazil’s federal police said in another statement that Jefferson was also arrested for attempted murder.

Bolsonaro was quick to criticize his ally in a live broadcast on social media. He denounced Jefferson’s statements against Supreme Court justices, including the threats and insults that led to his initial arrest, and Sunday’s attack. He also sought to distance himself from the former lawmaker.

“There’s not a single picture of him and me,” Brazil’s president said. His opponents promptly posted several pictures of the two together on social media.

Bolsonaro also said he dispatched Justice Minister Anderson Torres to the scene, without providing details on what his role would be.

Bolsonaro’s base had mixed reactions, with some on social media hailing Jefferson as a hero for standing up to the top court. Dozens flocked to his house to show support as he remained holed up inside. They chanted, with one group holding a banner that read: “FREEDOM FOR ROBERTO JEFFERSON”.

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is campaigning to return to his former job, told reporters in Sao Paulo that Jefferson “does not have adequate behavior. It is not normal behavior.”

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court convicted lawmaker Daniel Silveira for inciting physical attacks on the court’s justices as well as other authorities. Bolsonaro quickly issued a pardon for Silveira, who appeared beside the president after he cast his vote in the election’s first round on Oct. 2.

The runoff vote between Bolsonaro and da Silva is set for Oct. 30

“Brazil is terrified watching events that, this Sunday, reach the peak of the absurd,” Arthur Lira, the president of Congress’ Lower House and a Bolsonaro ally, wrote on Twitter. “We will not tolerate setbacks or attacks against our democracy.”

Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

Searchers also turned up backpacks and bags, and pieces of the plane.

All five passengers were believed to be German citizens, said Security Minister Jorge Torres. The plane’s pilot was Swiss.

Costa Rican authorities said pieces of the twin-engine turboprop aircraft were found in the water Saturday, after the flight went missing Friday.

A flight plan filed for the small plane listed Rainer Schaller as a passenger. A man by the same name runs international chains of fitness and gym outlets, including Gold’s Gym and McFit. At least one other of those aboard the plane seemed to be a relative of Schaller, but the relation was not immediately confirmed by authorities.

Searchers are concentrating on a site about 17 miles (28 kilometers) off the coast from the Limon airport.

The plane was a nine-seat Italian-made Piaggio P180 Avanti, known for its distinctive profile. It disappeared from radar as it was heading to Limon, a resort town on the coast.

The security minister said the flight had set out from Mexico.

“Around six in the afternoon we received an alert about a flight coming from Mexico to the Limon airport, carrying five German passengers,” Torres said. A search started immediately but was called off temporarily due to bad weather.

Rainer Schaller is listed as “Founder, Owner and CEO of the RSG Group,” a conglomerate of 21 fitness, lifestyle and fashion brands that operates in 48 countries and has 41,000 employees, either directly or through franchises.

The RSG Group did not respond to requests for comment on whether Schaller had been aboard the plane.

Schaller was in the news in 2010 for his role as organizer of the Berlin Love Parade techno festival. A crush at the event killed 21 people and injured more than 500. Authorities at the time said Schaller’s security failed to stop the flow of people into a tunnel when the situation was already tense at the entrance to the festival grounds.

Schaller fought back against the accusations of wrongdoing, noting that his security concept received official city approval.

Security forces from the southern Somali state of Jubaland later ended the siege, killing the gunmen and rescuing scores of people, state media reported.

There was no official word on casualties, but a doctor at Kismayo Hospital told The Associated Press saw the bodies of eight dead people, four of whom were security personnel.

At least 41 people were wounded in the attack, the doctor said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge such information.

Journalists were prevented from getting close to the scene of the attack. Footage shared on social media showed ambulances collecting the wounded from outside the hotel in central Kismayo.

The city is located about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

The attack began when a car driven by a suicide bomber rammed the entrance gate of the hotel and then exploded, police officer Abshir Omar said by phone. A number of small businesses along the street were destroyed.

Some government officials and traditional elders were eating lunch in the hotel at the time of the explosion, he said.

Mohamed Nasi Guled, a senior police official in Jubaland, said three attackers entered the hotel’s premises.

The hotel is popular as a meeting place for government officials. Al-Shabab is believed to have a strong presence in the areas surrounding Kismayo, the largest city and commercial capital of Jubaland.

Al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, regularly carries out attacks in the Horn of Africa nation. Many of the group’s attacks target popular hotels.

Al-Shabab opposes the Mogadishu-based federal government, which it perceives as a puppet of foreign governments. The group also opposes the presence of foreign troops in Somalia.