COTONOU, Benin—Perhaps Maj. Gen. Abou Issa should have realized he was facing a coup d’état when a junior soldier punched him in the mouth. The soldier belonged to an emergency unit dispatched to Issa’s house to rescue him from a dark-of-night attack by masked gunmen. Instead of saving the general, half-a-dozen soldiers clubbed him into bloody unconsciousness with their rifle butts. But it had already been a confusing night of strange and violent events. Someone broke down the door of Issa’s house. Someone shot at his wife. Someone stole a 24-pack of Sprite from his larder. Someone left a mortally…

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