A coup in Burkina Faso will help the Sahel’s jihadists

MOST COUPS begin with confusion. In Burkina Faso the first sign was gunfire echoing from army bases in Ouagadougou, the capital, on January 23rd. Mutinous soldiers soon emerged, demanding the resignation of the top brass and better equipment for their terrorising the Sahel. By daybreak bullet-riddled presidential vehicles were visible in the streets and soldiers surrounded the main television station.Then came clarity and cliché: uniformed men armed with guns and a clunky label, the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration (pictured), announced that they had taken over. The government had been dissolved and the constitution suspended, they said. The president, Roch Kaboré, has not been seen and is thought to be under arrest. In his place came a new strongman, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, an infantry officer who last year published a book criticising the way the war against jihadists is being waged.