Burkina Faso: over 400 assailants neutralized in the east and northeast, according to the army.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces (EMGA) of Burkina Faso announced on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, that the National Armed Forces (FAN) and the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) had neutralized more than 400 attackers during operations conducted on June 30 against armed groups that had attacked military positions in the areas of Gayéri, in the Sirba region, and Solhan and Sebba, in the Liptako region.

According to the EMGA statement, ground units, supported by aerial vectors, immediately counterattacked. Airstrikes and ground combat enabled the recovery of 353 firearms of various calibers, over 250 motorcycles, military ammunition, and communication equipment. The military institution paid tribute to three soldiers killed in combat, two in Solhan and one in Gayéri. The number of injured among the Burkinabè forces was not specified. The armed groups involved in the attacks were not formally identified in the statement.

The three targeted localities belong to the so-called “three borders” area, at the confluence of the territories of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, where groups affiliated with the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, linked to Al-Qaeda) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) have been operating for several years. Solhan and Sebba had already been the scenes of major deadly attacks, notably in June 2021 (160 civilians killed in Solhan) and in January 2025 (attack on Sebba). Gayéri, in the province of Komondjari, about 350 kilometers east of Ouagadougou, has been targeted by several ambushes and attacks against military convoys since 2020.

Diplomatic Break with France

In its statement, the EMGA established an explicit link between the June 30 attacks and Burkina Faso’s decision to sever its diplomatic relations with France announced the day before. The text asserts that the attackers aimed to “maximize civilian and military casualties to fuel the distorted narrative about the security situation in our country,” and that these attacks serve as proof that France supports armed groups—an assertion made by the EMGA as an established fact but not backed by independent evidence. France did not respond to this claim at the time of the publication of this dispatch.

This attribution rhetoric fits within a recurring narrative from Burkinabè authorities since the September 2022 coup. Since then, the military government of Captain Ibrahim Traoré has regularly accused “foreign powers” of supporting armed groups, without producing verifiable evidence to support these accusations.

A Security and Diplomatic Spiral

The attacks on June 30 occur in a delicate context regarding the security situation in Burkina Faso, where several portions of national territory were beyond the effective control of the state in 2025 according to multiple assessments by international organizations. The Sahel, Liptako, and Eastern regions account for most of the recorded armed incidents. The Burkinabè government has refused since 2023 to allow independent humanitarian organizations and international media to operate freely in conflict zones, accusing them of complicity with the enemy and spreading false information.

Security operations in the areas of Gayéri, Solhan, and Sebba were ongoing according to the EMGA, which urged the population to report any suspicious individuals to the defense and security forces.