As my colleagues Hervé Taoko, Alan Cowell and Rukmini Callimachi report, the fate of President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso was in doubt late Thursday, after tens of thousands of demonstrators set fire to the Parliament building and seized the offices of state television in the capital, Ouagadougou.

Gen. Honoré Nabéré Traoré, the chief of staff of Burkina Faso’s armed forces, announced that a transitional authority would take power and rule the country until elections were held, within 12 months.