Militants carried out simultaneous attacks on Friday morning on the military headquarters of Burkina Faso and the French Embassy in the nation’s capital, the government said.

It appeared to be another stunning assault by Islamist militants in Burkina Faso, a West African nation that has suffered two big deadly attacks by jihadists in the past two years.

The assault on the military headquarters appeared to have been aimed at a gathering of senior officers, according to Security Minister Clément Sawadogo, who told journalists that the army might have been “decapitated” had the meeting not been fortuitously moved to a different location at the last minute.

By nightfall, a full picture of the situation was still coming into view, but the government reported that at least eight members of the security forces, as well as eight assailants, died in the attacks.