Burkina Faso's Traoré Opens New Front Against Muslim Scholars as Informal Compact Collapses

The Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute assesses that the tacit compact between Captain Ibrahim Traoré's government and Burkina Faso's Muslim community has collapsed. Traoré declared "the battle has begun" against what he calls foreign-backed religious extremism. The rupture follows a Religious Freedoms Law, the arrest of two prominent imams, and a plan to recall 800,000 students studying Islamic law abroad.