Bomb Scare At Kotoka

Reports reaching DAILY GUIDE indicate that Ghana is said to be on a hit list of an international terrorist group, leading to deployment of soldiers at the Kotoka International Airport, Accra.

Deployed soldiers at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), some of whom engaged in metal detecting routines on departing passengers, have compelled people to ask questions about what has gone amiss.

Ghanaians, especially those working at the airport, have resorted to speculations.

DAILY GUIDE has learnt though that the action by the military was informed by international intelligence fed to Ghana that the country was one of four others being targeted by terrorists for bombing.

The international intelligence is speculated to have pointed at Al Qaeeda as behind the plot, although there is no concrete evidence to that effect.

Nigeria and two others are said to be the other countries on the radar of the terrorist group, even though it is currently grappling with internal terrorists, the Boko Haram, who are causing mayhem in the populous West African country.

The presence of the soldiers is therefore a national security response to the alert, a source said.

For those who still recall the days of the revolution, a time when the presence of soldiers at the KIA was a regular feature, they remembered vividly the apprehension it caused in its early days until it became a characteristic of the airport.

When the Director of the Armed Forces Public Relations Directorate, Col. Mbawine Atintande, was contacted on the subject, he downplayed its enormity, explaining that “there are only a few military policemen at the place and they are not frisking passengers.”

As to whether the operation is a response to a certain international alert, he said he would find out.

For Nigeria, such a threat is not new. That country has constantly received such information through its collaboration with US intelligence managers whose experience in those matters is vast and beyond compare.