On March 24, 2024, the Al-Zallaqa Media Foundation, the media arm of Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the African Sahel, Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam Wal-Muslimeen (the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims – GSIM), published[1] a 24-minute, 18-second video of an audio speech by Abu Mahmoud Al-Ansari, the group’s emir of Burkina Faso. Titled “And We Will Make Them the Inheritors” [Quran 28:5], the speech is delivered in a local language, with Arabic subtitles. This report reviews the speech.

Governments In African Sahel Turn To Russia To Stop ‘Jihadi Flood’ In The Region

After greeting Muslims in honor of Ramadan, Al-Ansari praises jihad in the African Sahel, claiming it has become a “tangible reality” that includes “vast countries and territories.” He states: “Muslims’ observance of this commandment has begun to give sleepless nights to the global unbelief, disturb its plans, and affect the relations between the countries of treachery and their rulers in the West.” Referring to the withdrawal of French forces from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger over the past two years, he further states that after the collapse of the former “colonial forces” and their allies, the governments of the region “could not imagine themselves” without support, which caused them to turn to Russia in a “renewed attempt” to stop the “growing Islamic expansion” and “jihadi flood” in the region.

Armed Burkinabe Forces Expel Residents From Country’s North, Massacre Civilians

Al-Ansari alleges that the Burkinabe government, under the leadership of Interim President Ibrahim Traore, has been working for two years to “evacuate” northern Burkina Faso, forcibly expelling its residents in a “scorched-earth” tactic, describing it as an “ethnic excision campaign.” He adds that the government recruited “popular militias” parallel to the regular army, sparking a “civil war,” and “unleashed” its security and military forces to kill thousands of innocent civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, and that the forces committed “massacres” and “genocides,” and looted residents’ property and wealth.

Call On Turkey To Stop Military Support Of African Regimes

Addressing the Turkish people, Al-Ansari asks them to “reassess” the “stances” of their government, which supports the regimes in the region, participates in “our war,” and “sheds blood of our sons and women.” He urges them to put pressure on their government to stop its “military and material support” of regional powers and end all security and military agreements with them, most notably those providing “dozens” of African countries with Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, which Al-Ansari alleges have become a “main tool” for killing women and children and destroying houses and communities.

Burkinabe People Embrace GSIM; Mujahideen Create ‘Strategic Changes’ Despite Military Inferiority

Al-Ansari stresses that the people of Burkina Faso embrace the group’s jihad. He claims that “thousands” have “taken up arms” to break the “shackles of slavery” which is not in the service of Allah. Further claiming that despite their military and material inferiority, the group’s mujahideen have caused “strategic and field changes” in the region, he details that recently, GSIM operatives have taken control of “dozens of security bases and facilities” and targeted “hundreds of military sites and targets,” killing over 500 forces since the beginning of the Hijri year in mid-July 2023. He adds that in recent months, GSIM companies have destroyed dozens of military vehicles.

Call On Muslims In Burkina Faso To Support Mujahideen

Addressing Muslims in Burkina Faso, Al-Ansari asserts that regimes have “disrupted” the Islamic rule in the country by handing the country over to “colonialists.” He claims that since Burkina Faso gained its “alleged independence” in the 1960s, Muslims there have been “marginalized, persecuted, and enslaved,” and asserts that “jihad for the sake of Allah” is the only solution to protect their “religion, land, and honor.” He urges “all the ethnic groups” in the region, and in Burkina Faso in particular, to “return to Allah’s religion” and support the group’s mujahideen against the regime, which “took power by force” and “handed the country and its resources over to the Russians and their mercenaries.” He further warns them against joining military and security services of the region’s regimes.

Message Of Support For Gaza

Al-Ansari expresses support for the “Muslim brothers” in “beloved Gaza,” who experience “killing, destruction, and expulsion… from an air raid of the Zionist enemy on the border city of Rafah… and deliberate, continuous starvation,” adding that the “defeat, casualties, and pains” to be inflicted on the “Zionist entity” will be “many times worse” than the suffering of Gazans. Asserting that the Jews’ “fierce campaign” against Gaza is supported by the “global unbelief,” and that the defeat of the “Zionist-Crusader campaign” and victory of mujahideen is a “huge reward, and all sacrifices pale in comparison,” he encourages mujahideen in Gaza to show patience and steadfastness.

In recent months, GSIM has claimed several attacks on armed forces in Burkina Faso.[2]

[1] Chirpwire.

[2] See MEMRI JTTM reports: Al-Qaeda Affiliate GSIM Claims Casualties In Attacks In Burkina Faso, Mali, February 28, 2024; Al-Qaeda Affiliate In The Sahel (GSIM) Tallies Rising Attacks Against Troops In Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin; Denies Death Of Explosives Expert In ‘New Massacres’ Against Civilians In Mali’s Segou Region, February 26, 2024.