"Gunmen from Al Qaeda stormed a luxury hotel frequented by foreigners in Burkina Faso’s capital on Friday night..."

"... seizing hostages and killing others while fighting with dozens of security forces who began a counterattack hours later. It was Al Qaeda’s first major attack in this landlocked sub-Saharan country, a former French colony...."

The attack, claimed by the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb affiliate along with an allied militant group, was at least the fifth time in recent days that armed militants had ambushed unprotected civilians in cities around the world, hitting sites in Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and Iraq with deadly assaults that underscored the vulnerabilities of soft targets that are difficult to defend.

"From medieval times until the end of the 19th century, the region of Burkina Faso was ruled by the empire-building Mossi people..."

"... who are believed to have come up to their present location from northern Ghana, where the ethnically-related Dagomba people still live. For several centuries, Mossi peasants were both farmers and soldiers; as the Mossi Kingdoms successfully defended their territory, indigenous religious beliefs, and social structure against forcible attempts to conquer or convert them to Islam by Muslim peoples from the northwest."

Burkina Faso is today's "History of" country.

More recently, children of the 1983-1987 revolution: