Burkina Faso attack demonstrates al Qaeda revival in Africa

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, often seen as a fractured and undisciplined group, apparently has carried out its second major terror attack in two months -- claiming more than 20 lives in the assault on a luxury hotel and two other targets in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

The gun attack on the Splendid Hotel bears many similaritiesto that on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, on November 20 in which 22 people were killed.

Both targets were popular with Westerners and international (especially U.N). officials; they were "soft," rather than military installations or police stations. The attackers (two in Bamako, possibly four in Ouagadougou) were armed with automatic weapons, their aim to kill and then take as many hostages as possible.

And both operations apparently were carried out by an AQIM group called Al Mourabitoun.

The group's statement after the latest attack claimed the Splendid Hotel was "frequented by staff of the nations of global disbelief;" the attack was "to punish the cross-worshippers for their crimes against our people in Central Africa, Mali, and other lands of the Muslims."

A very similar statement followed the Bamako attack, which was revenge for the "assaults of the Crusaders on our people, our sanctities, and our mujahideen brothers in Mali."

But while Mali has seen dozens of terror attacks by AQIM over the years, this is the first time the group apparently has extended its operations to neighboring Burkina Faso.

In a region already reeling from terrorist violence and racked by instability, it's an ominous portent of AQIM's rejuvenated ambition. As intelligence analysts Flashpoint Partners write: "This is the first claim of credit by a major al Qaeda branch for an attack in Burkina Faso, which indicates an alarming growth in the group's transnational reach."

Another sign of AQIM's renewed vigor was its audio statement this week urging Muslims to expel Spain from its two enclaves in North Africa -- Ceuta and Melilla -- and to attack foreign occupiers in Libya.

"The Italians and Romans have occupied the land once again, and most important after faith is pushing them away, deterring them, and expelling them from our lands," says the head of AQIM's "Council of Dignitaries," Abu Obeida Yusuf al-'Annabi, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.

AQIM is recovering from a sequence of divisions and defeats in recent years. After various AQIM affiliates swept across northern Mali in 2012, seizing nearly half the country, intervention by the French and several African militaries pushed them out of cities such as Timbuktu and Gao and back into remote desert regions.

But the vast Sahel desert and its mountain ranges were (and are) a refuge for AQIM commanders like Mokhtar Belmoktar, the most infamous and dangerous of AQIM leaders. Belmoktar is leader of Al Mourabitoun, which carried out another deadly hotel attack in the Malian town of Sevarelast August in addition to the Bamako and Ouagadougou attacks.