[4][3] In September 2013, Dicko was arrested along with twenty of his students by French forces of Operation Serval near Tessalit, Mali.

[7] At the time, Katiba Macina had a small sleeper contingent of forty men in Soum Province of Burkina Faso.

[7] Koufa objected to a jihadist rebellion in Burkina Faso however, as he considered it premature and would disrupt supply lines of gas and food crucial to Katiba Macina's operations.

[7] A former member of Ansarul Islam testified that Dicko decided to spur a violent insurrection in Burkina Faso following Operation Ségueré in November 2016, where he saw Burkinabe soldiers publicly humiliating Fulani peasants.

[7] Ansarul Islam was founded in November 2016 in the Foulsaré forest, coming to prominence in a press release where they claimed responsibility for the 2016 Nassoumbou attack against the Burkinabe army.

Dicko called into question the "omnipotence of customary chiefdoms and the monopoly of religious authority held by maraboutic families, whom he accuses of enriching themselves at the expense of the populations.