Talks with Sahel extremists: Taboo, or a path toward peace?

In once-peaceful Burkina Faso, it was Djibo that first fell.

The jihadi insurgency currently engulfing the country originally spread from neighboring Mali, where groups backed by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have operated for almost a decade. But homegrown Islamist movements soon sprung up.

And the provincial capital of Djibo itself, near the border, was home to one Malam Ibrahim Dicko, a radical preacher calling on the region to rise up against the government, which he accused of neglecting the north.

So last November, after five years of bloodshed, Djibo’s residents welcomed an odd development. The number of jihadi attacks was falling considerably, and some of the town’s men who had joined Islamist groups returned