FAUBE, Burkina Faso (Reuters) - 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.