From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Al Qaeda Closes In on a Stalwart U.S. Ally in Africa   
   By Michael M. Phillips, March 26, 2023, WSJ   
   BAWKU, Ghana—The good news according to Salifu Bashru, an elder of the   
   Mamprusi people, is that if al Qaeda militants attack, they’ll probably kill   
   his rivals from the Kusasi community first.   
      
   The bitter, 65-year dispute between Mamprusi and Kusasi over which ethnic   
   group rules this small northern Ghanaian city has turned deadly in recent   
   months, with neighbors exchanging machine-gun fire and each side vowing never   
   to let the other get its way.   
      
   So Mr. Salifu relishes the idea of al Qaeda gunmen storming through Kusasi   
   neighborhoods even more than he worries about the terror group invading Ghana   
   in the first place. “We wouldn’t help the Kusasi at all,” vowed the   
   60-year-old, seated in    
   front of a mural listing Mamprusis who have served as paramount chief of Bawku   
   since 1721.   
      
   The clash between Bawku’s main ethnic groups is a hyper-local conflict with   
   potentially global implications. Both Ghanaian and U.S. officials fear that al   
   Qaeda militants, who have attacked villages in Burkina Faso just a few miles   
   away, could take    
   advantage of the tensions to establish a beachhead in Ghana, a regional   
   powerhouse and American ally known for its relative stability and prosperity.   
      
   Over the past five years, militants from al Qaeda and Islamic State have   
   spread like an ink blot through the semiarid Sahel band of West Africa,   
   killing thousands in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.   
      
   One of their favorite tactics is to inflame local conflicts and grievances to   
   recruit young men. That strategy has helped turn Africa, from Mali in the west   
   to Somalia in the east to Mozambique in the south, into the main battlefield   
   in the decadeslong    
   contest pitting Islamist extremists against the West and its local allies.   
      
   “The threat of terrorism hanging around Ghana through the corridors of Bawku   
   is real,” Ghanaian Defense Minister Dominic Nitiwul said in parliamentary   
   debate last month, addressing the Mamprusi-Kusasi conflict.   
      
   He said the government was sending 500 more troops to Bawku to back 400   
   already there trying to keep the peace. Community groups have put up posters   
   urging people to report possible jihadi infiltrators.   
      
   U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Ghana this week and is   
   expected to announce fresh American aid to address security issues along the   
   country’s northern border.   
      
   Kusasi leaders say they haven’t put much thought into how they’ll prevent   
   religious extremism from infecting young men who already use guns to get their   
   way in the name of ethnic self-defense. They’re too caught up in their   
   battle against the    
   Mamprusi.   
      
   “We know it creates an opening for the jihadis to exploit, but what can we   
   do?” said Thomas Abilla, 80, an adviser to the Kusasi chief.   
      
   Militant Islamists, most of them al Qaeda adherents, carried out 1,470 attacks   
   last year in Burkina Faso, to Ghana’s north, a 26% jump from 2021. The   
   violence left 3,600 people dead, according to data from the Armed Conflict   
   Location & Event Data    
   Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit violence-monitoring organization, as analyzed   
   by the Pentagon’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies.   
      
   The U.S. estimates al Qaeda’s local affiliate, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal   
   Muslimin, or JNIM, controls 40% of Burkina Faso’s territory.   
      
   Militants are pivoting southward and launching attacks in Ghana’s coastal   
   neighbors, Togo, Benin and Ivory Coast. The U.S., which is desperately trying   
   to establish a firebreak, fears that Ghana could be next. The majority of its   
   34 million inhabitants    
   are Christian. Muslims make up a large share in the country’s poorer north.   
      
   Expansion into Ghana could ultimately give al Qaeda access to revenue from   
   trade through Atlantic ports. Ghana is a major producer of cocoa and gold. In   
   areas the militants control in West Africa, they forcibly extract taxes from   
   artisanal gold mines,    
   which are common in northern Ghana, according to U.S. military officers in   
   Africa.   
      
   “We can’t just assume Ghana will be able to withstand this,” said Joe   
   Siegle, research director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.   
   “It’s very much in the crosshairs.”   
      
   This month, the U.S. and two-dozen European and African militaries for the   
   first time conducted their annual West Africa commando exercises in   
   Ghana—American-led training to address al Qaeda and Islamic State threats.   
   At an army base in the town of    
   Daboya, British commandos coached Ghanaian special-operations troops on   
   treating catastrophic battle wounds, and U.S. Green Berets drilled them on   
   marksmanship.   
      
   “We’re not facing country-to-country conflict—it’s terrorists coming   
   in,” said Ghanaian special forces Col. Richard Mensah, the exercise   
   commander.   
      
   Ghana and its beleaguered neighbors share intelligence on militants’   
   activities and agreed to conduct joint patrols in contested border areas, he   
   said. The exercises took place a few hours’ drive from the real-world   
   violence in Bawku, a city of    
   perhaps 40,000 people.   
      
   The ethnic dispute there has led to at least 50 deaths in the past couple of   
   months, local leaders say. A Ghanaian army spokesman said he couldn’t   
   comment on the dispute because it is a national-security issue. The regional   
   police chief wouldn’t    
   discuss security.   
      
   Kusasi accuse young Mamprusi gunmen of raiding their neighborhoods. Mamprusi   
   say young Kusasi gunmen ambush vehicles on the road into town, hunting for   
   anyone they suspect of being pro-Mamprusi.   
      
   “There’s no line in town, but you know where to cross and where not to   
   cross,” Yawuza Bagura, an administrator at Winamzua Junior High School, said   
   last month. He is a member of the Bissa people, one of several smaller ethnic   
   groups caught up in    
   the back-and-forth.   
      
   Behind his house, Mr. Bagura pointed out a short stretch of scrubby no-man’s   
   land, a shallow dip in the terrain, then a Kusasi neighborhood less than a   
   mile away. He tried to keep out of sight as he walked through the area, which   
   had been swept by    
   machine-gun fire the previous night. Gunmen recently burned six non-Kusasi   
   houses on the incongruously named Baby Blue Street.   
      
      
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