A military coup in Burkina Faso on Monday has become the latest in West Africa and the conflict-torn Sahel, where armies are increasingly ousting civilian administrations due to their perceived ineffectiveness.

The Sahel state's army announced a takeover, ousting President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who was first elected in 2015 but faced rising anger over his inability to stop a brutal jihadist conflict.

Burkina Faso joins the ranks of several states in the region that are now ruled by military juntas.

In neighbouring Mali, Colonel Assimi Goita ousted elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020. He then deposed a civilian administration in May last year in a second coup.

Guinea's army also deposed elected president Alpha Conde in September 2021.

Chad is also governed by a junta led by Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, an army general who seized power in April last year after his father -- the Sahel state's former leader -- was killed on the battlefield.

Army coup plotters have justified their actions by pointing to the deep dysfunction of the administrations they overthrow.

In Guinea, Conde was deposed after months of brewing discontent, including deadly protests, against his rule.

Goita cited the "trampling" of civilian rights as well as endemic corruption as reasons for the army seizing power in Mali.

In the Sahel, putschists have often cited failures to contain the jihadist conflict.

Islamist fighters plague much of the vast semi-arid region, waging an insurgency that first emerged in Mali in 2012 before spreading to Burkina Faso and Niger.

Despite international support, the impoverished Sahel countries are struggling to contain the violence.

Burkina Faso's crisis began on Sunday, when mutineers demanded the sacking of the military top brass and more resources to fight the Islamist insurgency.

On Monday, the army announced on state television that it had seized power and closed the country's borders.

- 'Democratic disillusion' -

Niagale Bagayoko, the head of the African Security Sector Network expert group, said the trend towards coups is the result of "very strong democratic disillusion within public opinion".

She argued that in the Sahel few people are likely to think that voting will improve their security.

Burkinabe President Kabore himself won re-election in 2020 on promises of curbing the jihadist insurgency. However, the violence has continued unabated.

On November 14, an attack on a base in the Inata area of northern Burkina Faso killed 57 people, including 53 gendarmes.

Ornella Moderan, of the Institute for Security Studies think tank, said this attack fed a perception that the political class had abandoned the armed forces.

Rising insecurity has "exasperated the civilian population as much as the defence and security forces," she said.

Tensions had been brewing in Burkina Faso for months before Sunday's mutiny, with protests rocking several cities and senior military staff reshuffled in a bid to appease rank-and-file troops.

Then on January 11, military prosecutors said they had detained eight soldiers for allegedly planning to "destabilise" state institutions.

Mamadou Konate, a former Malian justice minister, told AFP that "the failure of democracies cannot justify the resurgence of soldiers on the scene".

But a trend appears to have set in. As well as the current military regimes in Guinea and Mali, former soldiers are also heading the governments of Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau.

A UN official working in the Sahel, who declined to be named, said a "page is being turned" for West African political veterans with a legacy of breaking promises.

"Can the military do better?" he asked.

Burkina Faso: from popular uprising to military coup
Paris (AFP) Jan 24, 2022 - As the military takes power in Burkina Faso after soldiers revolt, we look at the troubled West African country plagued by unrest and jihadist violence.

- 2014: Fall of Compaore -

Blaise Compaore takes power in a 1987 coup and cements his position four years later with the first of four election victories. But his 2010 win is contested, as is his attempt to amend the constitution to extend his rule. After being forced from power by street protests in 2014, he takes refuge in Ivory Coast and on November 29, 2015, former prime minister Roch Marc Christian Kabore is elected in his place.

- 2015: Jihadist attacks -

From 2015, the north of the country, the capital Ouagadougou and the east begin to suffer regular kidnappings and attacks by jihadist groups affiliated to the Al-Qaeda or Islamic State groups.

On January 15, 2016, an attack on the Splendid hotel and a restaurant in Ouagadougou leave 30 dead, most of them Westerners, shocking the country.

In November 2017, the French-backed G5 anti-jihadist force starts joint cross-border operations in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

- 2018: Attacks intensify

-

On March 2, 2018, simultaneous attacks target French forces and the former colonial power's embassy, leaving eight soldiers dead and 85 people injured.

The end of that year sees a state of emergency declared in several provinces.

From 2019, the attacks become almost daily, prompting the sacking of the head of the armed forces and formation of a new government.

On December 24, 42 people die in an attack by 200 jihadists on a military base in Arbinda, near the border with Mali.

- 2020: Kabore re-elected -

Kabore is re-elected on November 22, 2020, but insecurity means hundreds of thousands of people are unable to vote.

The opposition accuse the president of election fraud and refuse to recognise the result.

- 2021: Growing unrest -

Between 132 and 160 people are killed in a June 2021 raid on the northeastern village of Solhan in the worst attack in six years.

The killings spark demonstrations against insecurity and the ministers of defence and security are both fired.

On August 18, an attack in the north leaves 65 civilians and 15 police dead.

In October the president replaces the military chief of staff. A trial also begins into the killing 34 years earlier of charismatic former president Thomas Sankara, the "African Che Guevara". Compaore, the main accused, is not present.

On November 14, at least 57 people, 53 of them gendarmes, are massacred in an assault on a police station at Inata in the north, sparking further protests.

Burkinabe and Niger military say they eliminated around 100 "terrorists" during an operation on their common border between November 25 and December 9.

- New government -

December 8, the prime minister resigns and hands the reins to Lassina Zerbo, who urges national unity.

On December 23, 41 people are killed in yet another jihadist attack in the north.

The past month sees n a further spate of attacks and rumblings of discontent in the ranks of the armed forces echoing those in the wider population.

- 2022: Military takeover -

On Saturday police in Ouagadougou clash with demonstrators at a banned protest over the government's handling of the jihadist threat.

The following day soldiers at several army barracks stage a revolt but the government denies a coup is under way.

On Monday, Kabore is arrested by mutinous soldiers after gunshots are heard near his private residence.

They later announce a military takeover with Kabore's party saying he was the victim of an "aborted assassination attempt".

With his whereabouts still unclear, the United States and European Union call for his release.

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Kabore, Burkina's consensus-builder and onetime beacon of hope
Ouagadougou (AFP) Jan 24, 2022
Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, overthrown in a military coup on Monday, was once seen as embodying hopes for change and development in a West African nation now under siege from jihadists. The impoverished Sahel state of 21 million people placed its hopes in the affable consensus-building Kabore when voters first elected him in 2015, a year after a popular insurrection toppled strongman Blaise Compaore. However, it was also in 2015 when armed jihadist groups started to launch ... read more