APA-Lomé (Togo) – Togo’s strategic plan for responding to terrorists trying to upset stability in the north of the country is based on a three-pronged approach.
Northern Togo, bordering Burkina Faso, has been infiltrated by jihadist groups for close to three years.
Having infiltrated much of the territories of countries in the Sahel, jihadists are looking to extend their influence to Gulf of Guinea nations such as Togo.
However Lomé has responded to this threat.
President Faure Gnassingbé said recently that Togo’s armed forces were inflicting major setbacks on the Islamic State in the Sahel (EIS) and the Support Group for Islam and Muslim (GSIM), two jihadist groups he described as his country’s main enemies in the fight against terrorism, often without informing the population.
“It is not because we do not issue a communiqué that we do not score successes. We have successes. But it is indecent to celebrate the death of a person. Because we still have values like our sense of humanity. So, we keep quiet about it,” the Togolese leader told Togolese journalists on the sidelines of the celebrations of his country’s 63rd anniversary of the independence.
According to 56-year-old Gnassingbé, who has led Togo since the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadema, in 2005, his country is now witnessing “a kind of war” thanks to recurrent jihadist attacks, which have forced the state to organise the relocation of some populations in order to better guarantee their safety.
The Lomé approach
This operation is the third axis of the “strategy” implemented by Togo in the fight against terrorism, said the Togolese head of state.
“You know the nature of our borders, which are often porous. We have moved a little less than 12,000 people. Unfortunately, these are what we sometimes call internal refugees. For the time being, these people are staying with families and we have strengthened the health and education infrastructures to make them comfortable and provide them with food,” he explained.
He said the first pillar in this strategic axis is a military response that will gradually combine “a preventive, defensive and offensive approach.” In a second phase, “we are trying to de-radicalise or prevent the radicalisation of the population, because it is men, young people, who are used to carry out these attacks,” stressed Faure Gnassingbé, calling for the collaboration of his compatriots in order to win this war.
A long struggle with dramatic moments
The Togolese “must expect a long struggle with periods of drama. This is inevitable when there is war. But I can assure my compatriots that in the end there will be victory. We are determined to reduce the terrorists of these armed gangs to ashes,” said Gnassingbé.
ODL/ac/lb/APA