Abidjan:
At least two soldiers and a police officer have been killed Saturday when their automobile hit an explosive device in northeast Ivory Coast close to the border with Burkina Faso, a safety supply told AFP.
“The explosion also left three wounded,” the supply stated. It comes a week right after yet another attack by suspected terrorists killed an Ivorian soldier in Tougbo town a handful of kilometres from the border.
It also comes just two days right after Ivory Coast and France inaugurated a counter-terrorism academy close to Abidjan intended to ramp up the Sahel region’s capacity to counter a widespread terrorist threat.
Security specialists have warned that the area’s bloody terrorist insurgency could spread southwards to nations on the Gulf of Guinea.
It was the fourth attack in the west African area in just more than two months.
The newest spate of assaults date back to March, when dozens of suspected terrorists killed 3 members of the Ivorian safety forces in a twin raid on army positions close to the border with Burkina.
“Three terrorists” have been killed and 4 have been arrested, the army stated.
These attacks have been blamed on terrorists who are active in Burkina Faso, as nicely as neighbouring Mali and Niger.
The Sahel insurgency sprang up in northern Mali in 2012 just before advancing into Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.
Ivory Coast was very first hit in a terrorist attack in March 2016, when 19 men and women died in a raid on Grand-Bassam, a seaside resort close to Abidjan.
In June 2020, 14 soldiers have been killed in an attack on Kafolo.
“Northern Ivory Coast along the border with Burkina Faso is coming under the heel of jihadist groups. This region constitutes an important security aspect for the Ivorian state,” Ivorian anti-terrorism professional Lassina Diarra told AFP lately.