Free Republic

"The priest's lifeless body was found in the Toumousseni Forest," a security source said.A priest missing since Tuesday in Burkina Faso’s jihadist-plagued southwest has been found dead, security and local sources said Thursday. “The priest’s lifeless body was found in the Toumousseni Forest” in the Cascades region bordering Ivory Coast and Mali, a security source said. A local politician confirmed that the priest, Abbot Rodrigue Sanon from the Notre Dame de Soubaganyedougou parish, had been found dead.

As Tuareg rebels battle radical Islamists with heavy weapons for control of the northern Mali city of Gao, Mali and the other 15 nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are planning a military offensive designed to drive both groups out of northern Mali in an effort to re-impose order in the region and prevent the six-month old conflict from destabilizing the entire region. So far, however, operational planning has not been detailed enough to gain the approval of the UN Security Council for authorization of a Chapter Seven military intervention, leaving ECOWAS and the African Union...