West Africa’s coastal states are bracing for a jihadist storm

ADRONE WHIRS overhead as Ivorian special forces creep out of the undergrowth towards a mock village. French trainers watch closely. Nearby, Ghanaian commandos roar down a dusty road before an explosion sends them retreating under the gaze of British soldiers. Operation Flintlock, an annual counter-terrorism training exercise, appears to be going just as it should: regional forces learning from grizzled Western commandos.Yet Flintlock also encapsulates some of the weaknesses undermining the West’s efforts to train local armies to defeat the jihadists who have overrun large parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and are now attacking places to the south (see map). These include a lack of leadership by countries in the region, a troubling retreat from democracy and failed efforts to win the support of disgruntled populations.