Foreign
By Kennedy Nnamani
MAJOR GENERAL Andrew M. Rohling, Commander of U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, SETAF, has explained why Ghana and Senegal participated in African Lion 22 exercise.
He gave this explanation yesterday during a special digital press briefing on the activities and the achievements of the African Lion since inception 18 years ago.
The U.S SETAF commander noted that Ghana has chosen to partner with its African neighboyrs and the United States to help provide peace and security across the continent.
He said that “Ghana has a growing leadership role in regional security.”
“The United States and Ghana work closely on military training and readiness throughout the year, as indicated by their participation in African Lion both in Ghana itself and with Ghanaian officers here in Morocco as part of our headquarters training that’s happening,” he said.
Gen. Rohling added that “the significance of Ghana and Senegal exactly are that Ghana and Senegal are two great partners of the United States and we’ve been doing a series of activities with them bilaterally.
“And over the course of the last year as we designed the exercise, we realized, as did Ghana and Senegal individually, that the exercise African Lion best fit their security needs and the training objectives they wished to accomplish for their country and that they intertwined well with our interoperability objectives that we were hoping to get at in African Lion.”
This perhaps may explain why it seems like extremists are avoiding the countries.
Recall that all the countries around Ghana have suffered terrorist attacks, including one in a community less than 2 kilometers from Ghana’s border.
Gen. Rohling said that “while I can’t tell you exactly why terrorists are not attacking in Ghana, I can say that Ghana is and continues to be a vital partner for security in Western Africa.”
While speaking on the achievements of the African Lion outfit, the SETAF commander celebrated that close to 8,000 service members, 12 nations are currently participating in the exercise.
He further noted that 10 to 18 years of continuous, increasing, complex partner training with a commitment by all these countries are working towards a common goal of peace and stability across Africa.
First published June 29, 2022 @ 18:05 GMT |
KN
Tags: African Lion 22 MAJOR GENERAL Andrew M. Rohling SETAF
