UK troops may go to Ghana in shift of strategy against terror

BRITAIN is open to sending special forces to Ghana under a major shift in its anti-terror strategy in Africa, The Daily Telegraph understands.

British ministers will fly to Ghana to hammer out a new security agreement, with the possibility of boots on the ground, after the UK was forced to withdraw all of its peacekeepers from Mali in the face of bands of Russian mercenaries and jihadist groups.

The Telegraph understands that the US is already conducting speculative operations in northern Ghana. If an invitation were extended, the UK could end up doing the same.

British forces already train troops in Ghana. Observers will be watching the talks this week closely to see if Accra invites the UK in for further training, intelligence or combat operations.

Three years ago, Britain announced a major “pivot” to the jihadist-stricken Sahel region on Europe’s southern flank to great fanfare at home.

New embassies were opened. Hundreds of millions of pounds were promised in humanitarian and military aid. And 300 crack troops were sent deep into the Sahara to scout for gunmen allied to Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

But thousands of French troops left in August after France fell out with the Malian military junta it was supposed to protect. Last week the UK announced it was withdrawing its troops.

Rory Stewart, the former Africa minister who championed the Sahel focus under former prime minister Theresa May, was scathing about the real purpose of this week’s Ghana trip.

“I fear that the ‘pivot to Ghana and Burkina Faso’ is largely a way of excusing our retreat from the Sahel and will ultimately add up to less than people pretend,” he said.

Mr Stewart and allies have long argued that Britain’s own security would be at stake if the armed groups were allowed to establish themselves on the key migration routes to Europe.

But the jihadists’ move south into Burkina Faso and new Russian guns-for-hire groups rendered the small British peacekeepers largely irrelevant.

Ghana, the UK’S key ally in West Africa, is deeply concerned about the anarchy spreading across Burkina Faso, its northern neighbour, where fighters blow up aid convoys and lay siege to entire towns

Earlier this year, The Telegraph reported that Wagner mercenaries lined up anywhere from 200 to 600 men and boys and executed them in central Mali.

France said the Wagner group was trying to frame it for war crimes and withdrew from Mali.