Ablakwa’s ISIS Claims Is 18 months 'Old Rubbish' – Dr Aning

Security Analyst, Dr. Kwesi Aning has said the disclosure by the Minority in Parliament of Ghanaian migrants joining the dreadful terrorist group — the Islamic State — in Libya is no news.

At least 100 Ghanaians joined the deadly terrorist group and according to the Minority the figures were picked from a report from the Libyan government through its Attorney General.

Speaking at a press conference in Parliament House on Tuesday, the Minority spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa tasked the government to collaborate with its Libyan counterpart to address the issue before it escalates to Ghana.

Related: Ghana is second highest recruit contributor to ISIS – Okudzeto

According to him, the Ghanaian converts are “frontline fighters” for ISIS. “What is more unnerving; the special enquiry found that kidnappings of expatriates were mostly carried out by Islamic State foreign fighters from Ghana, Turkey and Tunisia,” he said.

Read also: Ablakwa’s ISIS claims mischievous – Majority

But in a reaction in a radio personality profile interview on Accra based Starr FM on Wednesday, Dr. Aning who is also the Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) said: “All this talk about fifty to one hundred Ghanaians who have joined ISIS, that is eighteen months old rubbish.”

“I have gotten so irritated the whole of today when people call me [to have my oppinon on the minority’s claims]…I started telling my governing board about this eighteen months ago that there’s an army on the Sahara three thousand five hundred strong…being paid a $1500 to $3000 every month to come as foreign terrorist fighters and undermine states.

“When I hear that a member of parliament, parliamentarians are making noise, it raises fundamental questions…,” he said in the interview with Bola Ray on his Starr Chart programme.