By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The United States forces and their European counterparts, have commenced an annual counter-terrorism training programme aimed at training African forces, an exercise which took off in Ghana Wednesday.
The drill is also expected to strengthen border defences in the fight against Islamist spreading into new territories in Africa.
Known as Flintlock, the programme took off at a military base in the dusty northern town of Daboya, where the Western trainers are currently drilling soldiers from across Africa on first aid and firing drills in the baking heat.
“Flintlock intends to strengthen the ability of key partner nations in the region to counter violent extremist organizations, collaborate across borders, and provide security for their people,” U.S. Africa Command said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Partners should take advantage of this window, because counter-terrorism efforts in West Africa have been largely ineffective once the overt phase of the insurgency (e.g. local recruitment) is underway,” said Aneliese Bernard, director of Strategic Stabilization Advisors, a U.S.-based risk advisory group.
The training comes at a critical time for West Africa, where groups linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda, continue to carry out routine attacks on civilians and the military despite costly interventions from international forces.
What began as a Mali-based insurgency in 2012, has since snowballed into a regional network of competing Islamist groups that operate across large areas of landlocked Niger and Burkina Faso and which in recent years have spread into coastal countries including Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast.
The violence has killed thousands and displaced millions.
So far Ghana, whose rural north borders Burkina Faso, has been spared the violence, but security experts say organised crime is rife, and poor, remote communities could be vulnerable to recruitment, as they have been in neighbouring countries.
