During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, an attack caused the death of eight Togolese soldiers. The terrorist attack, which took place in northern Togo, was predictable. Explanations.
This May 11, very early in the morning, a terrorist attack shook the north of Togo. The attack took place in Kpinkankandi, where the Togolese army is conducting its Kondjouaré operation which aims to secure the borders with Burkina Faso.
The toll is terrible: 8 dead and 13 injured, according to the Togolese authorities. The attack was repelled with difficulty, but the timing as well as its violence raise questions. Indeed, about sixty “unidentified armed individuals” attacked Kpinkankandi and deliberately targeted the Togolese soldiers.
This attack, according to the researcher specializing in terrorism in the Sahel Mahamadou Sawadogo, is “a message”. But for whom? And what should we understand?
The Plan of Expansion of Terrorist Groups
For a little over two years, Togo had been preparing for the expansion of Sahelian terrorist groups on its territory. The head of the French Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), Bernard Emié, had also warned, in February 2020, Togo but also Côte d'Ivoire and neighboring Benin of this project.
An expansion of terrorist violence for which French intelligence then blamed the leaders of Malian terrorist groups, namely the former leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi), who has since died, Abdelmalek Droukel, as well as his counterparts from the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and the Katiba Macina, Iyad Ag Ghali and Amadou Koufa.
The latter have seen their influence in the “Three Borders” area dwindle under the onslaught of the Malian army in recent months. But in Burkina Faso, Togo's immediate neighbor, observers are much less optimistic, as the situation is so unclear. Especially since within the terrorist nebula of the Sahel, the elimination of several warlords by the French bombardments has blurred the organization and the immediate objectives of the terrorists.
Meanwhile, Côte d'Ivoire had suffered several attacks targeting soldiers on the borders with Burkina Faso. More recently, Benin also had to deal with three deadly attacks at the end of 2021. According to the Beninese authorities, the attacks were then carried out by the Islamic State group.
In Togo, the security authorities therefore necessarily had to expect a terrorist attack. It remained to be seen when it would take place. Several members of armed group reconnaissance cells had previously been apprehended in northern Togo, then released after their interrogation because of a legal loophole.
A predictable terrorist attack
According to confidential documents published by AFP, Togo had dedicated 700 soldiers to the surveillance of the Savanes region, in the north of the country, since the start of Operation Kondjouaré in 2018. A figure which has greatly increased since. Togo has also invested heavily in armaments, buying military helicopters and armored vehicles from French gunsmiths, in order to prepare for the famous “expansion project” of terrorist groups.
Is this the bankruptcy of Togolese intelligence? Because, in addition to the path taken by the terrorists, who are heading more and more towards the countries of the Gold Coast, and despite the arrests of terrorists from the reconnaissance cells, other indicators announced new terrorist attacks in Togo.
Indeed, in the east of Burkina Faso, the terrorist group Ansarul Islam, affiliated with AQMI, led two attacks which are very similar to the one suffered by Togo on Wednesday. The first, on November 14, caused 53 military casualties in the ranks of the Burkinabé army, as well as four civilians. The second, 30 kilometers from the Togolese border, targeted the Pama reserve in December 2021. Since then, it has been no secret for any terrorism specialist: Ansarul Islam is installed in this forest region.
The terrorist attacks now taking place on Togolese soil are therefore not surprising. Even Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé seemed to know his country was going to be affected – during his last trip to Dapaong, in the north of the country, he said that “the terrorist threat is real and the pressure is very strong… we feel it a little more each day. But the response seems to have been slow on the part of the intelligence services which will, it seems, have great difficulty in curbing the terrorist threat in the short term.