FIVE MEN have been arrested by a joint Military and Police Task Force for attempting to smuggle arms into the Dagbon Traditional area of the Northern Region.

The men, arrested in separate operations in the Tamale area, are Bezie Libie, a Burkinabe; David Ibrahim, Songye Nditi, Abdulai Abugri and Nasem Nabari.

According to a press statement from the Task Force headquarters in Tamale, "Libie and Abugri were arrested at well-sited joint military-police check points on the existing road network with a single barrel Russian made shot gun and locally made shot gun respectively."

The statement said David, who possessed a fully loaded locally made pistol, was arrested on a KTS bus with registration number GR 7670 S.

"He was suspected to be an armed robber who could have held the passengers to ransom, had he not been timely arrested," the statement added.

Nabari was arrested on a Benz bus with registration number UE 1590 C, with four locally-made single barrel shot guns, while Nditi was arrested in the Savelugu Nanton District of the Northern Region with an AK47 and six rounds of ammunition.

On interrogation, the statement added, Libie said he was a farmer at a village called Noungoua in La Cote D'Ivoire, near its border with Ghana.

According to the statement, Libi said: "He was being harassed by the Ivorians as a result of Quattara's political ambition which have made all Burkinabes to be branded foreigners and asked to leave. But he was sending the Russian made weapon to his country for hunting when he was arrested."

Some of the arms were wrapped in mats or hidden in maize sacks.

The Unit Command warned those arming themselves to desist from the acts as they will surely be detected and arrested.

To that end, the Command has acquired a scanner for detecting weapons.

The culprits have since been handed over to the police for further investigations and prosecution.

The security services had earlier on conducted a dawn cordon and search operation in selected houses in the Tamale municipality. No arrests were however made.

Police swoops on suspected criminals and in search for arms cach?s have been multiplying of late in the country in general.

But there seems to be a special attention being paid to the Northern sector of the country, especially Tamale and Yendi.

This is obviously to nip any attempt to move arms from any place to the regional capital or the Dagbon Kingdom to re-ignite the clash that claimed over 40 lives, including that of the Overlord, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani; between March 25 and March 27 in the bud.

On April 8, for instance, one Seidu was arrested in a Yendi-bound bus for possessing two locally-manufactured pistols.

As reported in a front page story of this paper on April 9, the Ministry of Information said he was being interrogated on why he possessed such weapons in the conflict area.