Kuwait Not Sending Bodyguards To Gambia

Kuwait has denied a Gambian media report that it had dispatched 320 highly trained soldiers to Gambia to be in charge of the personal security of President Yaya Jammeh.

“The report is not true and lacks credibility,” Hamad Al Mashaan, Assistant Foreign Minister for African Affairs, said, quoted by Kuwaiti daily Al Rai on Tuesday.

Gambia’s Freedom newspaper reported that Kuwait was dispatching the soldiers “to be the new Presidential Guards for Yaya Jammeh.”

“This arrangement was concluded during the last visit of Madame Zeinab Jammeh [the president’s wife] to Kuwait and Morocco in April 2016,” the newspaper said. “They are going to be responsible for the personal security for Yaya Jammeh and his entire family and will have no reporting relationship to any of Jammeh’s army commanders. They will be directly answerable to the Jammehs.”

The Gambian paper added that “arrangements are being made to house them in Bakau near mile 7 area.

The govt of Yaja jammeh will only be responsible for their accomodation and living expenses all the rest will be provided bythe government of Kuwait one of many benefits Jammeh is expecting to gain from the Arab League of nations for making the Gambia an Islamic state.” 

However, Al Mashaan said that he attended the official meeting in Kuwait City and that “there was no reference whatsoever to the bodyguard allegations.”

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