A Military Leader to His People: ‘Fight or You Disappear’

Teenagers toyed with guns at a museum exhibit. Young men posed in front of posters of the country’s military leader. Over dinner in restaurants, families watched television monitors showing footage of drone strikes. The event was billed as a national cultural festival in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. But it often resembled a mobilization campaign in the all-out war against the Islamist terrorists who have gradually occupied the country in recent years.