How a preacher sent gunmen into Burkina Faso's schools

Soldiers secure the area in front of Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

When an Islamist preacher took up the fight in Burkina Faso’s northern borderlands almost a decade ago, his only weapon was a radio station. The words he spoke kindled the anger of a frustrated population, and helped turn their homes into a breeding ground for jihad.

Residents of this parched region in the Sahel - a vast band of thorny scrub beneath the Sahara Desert - remember applauding Ibrahim “Malam” Dicko as he denounced his country’s Western-backed government and racketeering police over the airwaves.