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. “The motherland or death,” Alaila Ilboudo, a spoken word artist, shouted onstage to the cheers of crowds at the festival, held in May in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second largest city.

---

Persons: ” Alaila, Dioulasso Locations: West African, Burkina Faso, Bobo