Burkina Faso’s junta says coup attempt thwarted, plotters arrested or on run

A coup attempt against Burkina Faso’s military government has been thwarted by the country’s security and intelligence services, authorities have announced, with a military prosecutor saying four of the plotters were arrested and two others are on the run.
Burkina Faso’s junta leadership said Wednesday (27 September) it had foiled a coup attempt the previous day, almost a year after the country’s leader came to power in a coup himself. “At present, officers and other alleged participants in this destabilization attempt have been arrested and others are being actively sought,” a spokesman for the ruling military said in a statement without providing details on what had happened. It said the alleged perpetrators “had the sinister intention of attacking the institutions of the Republic and plunging the country into chaos”.
Junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power on 39 September last year in what was the landlocked country’s second coup in eight months. The two takeovers were each triggered in part by discontent at failures to stem a raging jihadist insurgency which swept in from neighboring Mali in 2015. Earlier this month, the country’s military prosecutor said three soldiers had been arrested and charged with plotting against the ruling military government. The West African nation’s capital city Ouagadougou appeared calm on Wednesday evening following the military’s announcement of an attempt to topple it. Jihadist attacks across Burkina Faso continue unabated despite the junta’s repeated claims to have wrested back territory.