West African Commandos Prepare to Battle Terrorists by Land and Sea

SOGAKOPE, Ghana — Troops clad in black jumped out of motorboats close to a riverside resort and made their manner alongside a wood-slat fence to their goal: a constructing the place terrorists had seized a high-level authorities official.

Pictures rang out and the troops returned hearth. They quickly emerged from the one-story construction with the freed hostage, who was carrying a bloodstained white gown. An ambulance drove up, and the person was strapped to a gurney and brought away.

The scene alongside the Volta River in Ghana resulted in success for the army forces. However on at the present time, the pictures that have been fired have been blanks, the hostage was faux and the rescuers, 31 troopers and sailors, quickly lined up for applause from a U.S. Navy admiral and a coterie of commandos from greater than a dozen nations as the biggest annual particular operations train in Africa got here to an finish.

The 2-week U.S.-led occasion, known as Flintlock and held in Ghana and Ivory Coast this 12 months, had centered completely on land-based operations because it started in 2005. However the waterborne mission included this time — at a location a few dozen miles upriver from the coast — displays rising concern about safety within the Gulf of Guinea, the place pirates and different armed teams have exploited the lack of many West African nations to guard worldwide waters, U.S. and Ghanaian officers stated.

“The Gulf of Guinea is just like the Wild, Wild West of illicit exercise, particularly the drug commerce,” Gen. Michael E. Langley, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, stated in a gathering of the Senate Armed Companies Committee final week, after Flintlock had ended. “We’ve had a variety of nations that come collectively to concentrate on illicit exercise throughout the gulf, and the drug commerce is certainly one of them, smuggling is one other and transiting residents as effectively throughout that area.”

When President George W. Bush introduced the creation of U.S. Africa Command in 2007, he stated he hoped it could assist “convey peace and safety to the individuals of Africa” and promote humanitarian efforts in addition to democracy and financial development on the continent.

Nearly 16 years later, although, the addition of naval operations to the train — particularly the boarding and seizure of hostile vessels — exhibits that Africa Command’s record of duties has solely grown longer and extra sophisticated. And Flintlock, which concerned 700 troopers from 10 nations in 2005, included 1,300 from 29 nations this 12 months.

America and its allies within the area say Flintlock and comparable occasions will assist construct a bulwark in opposition to terrorist teams which have swept south from Mali in recent times, unfold throughout the Sahel and now threaten the coastal states of West Africa.

France, a former colonial energy in among the nations concerned, deployed forces to battle Islamist terrorist teams the area years in the past. However that mission, which numbered 5,000 troopers at its peak, has largely been terminated. In January, the federal government of Burkina Faso requested French troops there to depart as relations between the nations deteriorated.

This a part of West Africa has skilled profound upheaval because the final full-scale Flintlock happened in 2020. (It was canceled in 2021 due to Covid-19 and scaled down in 2022.)

In Burkina Faso, which borders Ghana to the north, the army seized energy from the democratically elected president in January 2022 and the chief of that coup was deposed by different army factions in October. Within the 18 months prior, there have been coups in Guinea and Mali, and to the east in Chad and Sudan as effectively.

“From a rustic standpoint, we see the terrorist exercise in Burkina Faso — which is sitting on high of us — as very vital,” stated Col. William Nortey, the director of operations for the Ghanaian Military. “Very massive swaths of land within the nation are being managed by the terrorist armed teams, in order that places us underneath a pressure.”

A lot of the teams are affiliated with the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, he stated.

Ghanaian Military officers in Accra, the capital, pegged the rise in terrorist exercise to the 2011 overthrow of Muammar el-Qaddafi and the disintegration of the Libyan state that adopted, which allowed arms to succeed in Mali and fall into the palms of Islamist teams. These teams have flourished throughout Sahel states like Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.

Some African governments have turned to Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group for assist in coping with terrorists inside their borders. That has opened these nations as much as exploitation by Russia, which has sought mining rights for varied pure assets in return, Ghanaian and U.S. officers stated.

However these nations might have entertained Russian assist out of desperation and aren’t essentially past saving, Colonel Nortey stated.

“We ought to be occupied with the way to interact them again into the democratic course of slightly than simply washing our palms,” he stated, including that army workout routines reminiscent of Flintlock are one approach to proceed that engagement.

To indicate that troops aren’t the one resolution to terrorism, U.S. particular operations planners added classes on the rule of regulation to the coaching.

The week of educational instruction included classes on the regulation of armed battle, which lined ideas like proportional use of pressure and the safety of civilians, along with extra conventional subjects in earlier years on the foundations of engagement on the tactical degree, reminiscent of when lethal pressure can be utilized.

However maybe much more vital, prosecutors and judges from the host nations have been invited this 12 months to assist the members see their broader function in counterterrorist actions.

In coaching for missions, the troopers would step apart as soon as any capturing stopped, permitting civilian or army police to course of the scene and acquire proof that might be utilized in prosecuting suspected terrorists in court docket.

That coaching was evident on the resort on the Volta.

Inside 5 minutes of the primary pictures, regulation enforcement officers in white coveralls have been working crime scene tape throughout the entrance of the constructing the place the hostage was discovered.

Small items of army particular operation troops teamed with civilian regulation enforcement officers could also be the way forward for counterterrorism on this a part of Africa. Earlier efforts, U.S. and Ghanaian officers stated, revolved round utilizing battalions of roughly 500 to 800 troopers, however such massive and static teams of presidency troops had proved weak to terrorist teams.

Discovering sufficient troops who could make it by the arduous coaching programs typical of particular army items, and constructing them into cohesive groups, is a standard problem for Western and African nations.

“We’re nonetheless within the formative levels,” stated Col. Richard Mensah, the chief of Ghana’s particular forces. “The fallout fee is so excessive, so we’re nonetheless molding them and we hope by 2025 to get to some degree — we’re nonetheless coaching.”

Most nations within the area are in the identical part of growth for constructing particular forces, he stated.

The teams have been paired with mentors from NATO nations in yearslong relationships. Throughout Flintlock, the Ghanaian naval forces have been matched with commandos from the Netherlands; Nigerian troops have been mentored by British forces; and Ivorians labored with Italians. American troopers from the Texas Nationwide Guard helped mentor their African counterparts on the joint headquarters in Accra.

The U.S.-led train unfold troops throughout 5 websites — 4 in Ghana and a forested space at a particular forces camp in Ivory Coast.

Naval coaching earlier within the last week had a tough begin as a small boat capsized within the river, injuring one Ghanaian sailor. A Spanish Navy frigate pulled out of a deliberate vessel boarding train quickly after, leaving the African commandos with solely a civilian ferry to follow taking down as an alternative.

Within the train’s finale, the hostage rescue pressure — a gaggle of small groups from totally different African nations — moved considerably hesitatingly at instances because it approached its goal and one soldier fired blindly over a fence towards the place the hostage was held. However with extra coaching, the troops are anticipated to type elite strike forces.

Groups like theirs would be the ones preventing terrorists, because the U.S. army mission within the western coastal a part of the continent doesn’t contain any “kinetic” actions like commando raids, airstrikes or artillery hearth, in accordance with Rear Adm. Milton J. Sands III, the commander of U.S. particular operations forces in Africa.

America maintains “a small footprint” of particular operations troops in Africa, the admiral stated, evaluating it to the contingent of U.S. forces at present in Syria. Though he declined to provide the exact variety of U.S. particular operations forces in Africa, roughly 900 U.S. troops are believed to be in Syria.

“That is very a lot us in assist and partnered shoulder to shoulder with our African companions within the area,” Admiral Sands stated in Accra after Flintlock was over. “We’re right here, we care about Africa and finally our purpose is a secure, safe and steady African continent.”

Kenny Holston contributed reporting.