The jihadist threat to Ghana: Burkina Faso uses it as a hideout and smuggling route

A Ghanaian security official based on the border with Burkina Faso told the BBC that the jihadists often crossed to regroup under pressure from the Burkina Faso army, and that they also used the country to smuggle weapons, food and fuel.

“It is not safe for Ghana. They are hiding in towns like Pusiga. Residents of the border communities are worried because there is no strict security,” he added.

In a report released in July, externalThe Dutch Institute of International Relations think tank said that “the lack of real attacks on Ghanaian soil is due to the account of not disrupting the JNIM’s supply lines and resting places, as well as not provoking the relatively strong army.”

“The examples of people saved by JNIM by showing their Ghana ID cards fit this reading,” he said.

Most Ghanaians are Christian, but the population near the border with Burkina Faso is predominantly Muslim – and parts of the region are also torn by ethnic tensions, fueling fears that jihadists could use them to their advantage.

The think tank said JNIM had attempted to recruit or incite Ghana’s small, predominantly Muslim Fulani community to carry out attacks on “very few” occasions.

JNIM claimed they were marginalized, but recruitment efforts had “minimal success” because the Fulani were “aware of the chaos engulfing the Sahel due to family networks” and did not want that to happen in Ghana, the think tank added. .

Amadou Koufa, a Fulani Muslim preacher in Burkina Faso, co-founded JNIM and is its second-in-command. It draws most of its fighters from the Fulani community in Burkina Faso.

The military has been accused by rights groups of retaliating by defaming the Fulani and carrying out indiscriminate attacks on their villages in Burkina Faso.

In 2022, the French-based non-governmental organization Promediation said that its research showed that the jihadists had recruited 200 to 300 young Ghanaians.

While some operate in insurgency-hit countries such as Burkina Faso, others have been “sent back to their villages in northern Ghana to preach their radical beliefs”.

This could eventually lead to jihadists “gaining a foothold in remote and peripheral areas in the north,” the NGO said.

From 2022, Ghana is spearheading efforts to create a new Western-backed, 10,000-strong regional force to fight an Islamist insurgency.

Tamale, the largest city in northern Ghana, is to be the headquarters of the force.

However, the headquarters have not yet been opened and the fate of the initiative is unclear after the region is divided between pro-Western and pro-Russian states.

Burkina Faso – along with Mali and Niger – turned to Russia. The three countries have formed their own alliance to fight the rebels and have also relied on the help of Russian mercenaries.

Ghana and other regional states remain allied with the West.

Ghana’s army has set up bases in the north, but the newly installed border control equipment is not yet operational, a security official told the BBC on condition of anonymity.

However, more troops were sent after JNIM carried out two attacks on the Burkina Faso side of the border late last month and early this month, the officer added.

The Ghanaian government did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

However, the ambassador to Burkina Faso, Boniface Gambila Adagbila, told the BBC that the two countries were helping each other in the fight against the rebels and warned that if Burkina Faso failed, “Ghana could be next”.

Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, which will form the next government after winning the December 7 election, has promised in its campaign manifesto to “increase” border security with “international partners” as well as improve the country’s intelligence capabilities.

In August 2023, the European Union announced that it would provide Ghana with around 100 armored vehicles, as well as surveillance equipment such as drones, as part of a €20m ($21.6m; £16.6m) aid package.

Many civilians and refugees cross the Ghana-Burkina Faso border on foot and on back roads to work, trade or visit relatives despite the security risk – and James said he was one of them. He was captured while traveling on his motorcycle to Senegal.