Over the last year, the Nigerian military has secured significant success in its fight against Boko Haram and the terrorists have been dislodged out of a lot of their strongholds. With the creation of the 9,000-striong Multi National Joint Task Force made up of troops from Chad, Cameroon, Niger Republic and Nigeria, the terrorists have been hit hard from all sides.
However, despite this, Boko Haram has simply refused to go away and is still carrying out bombings and sporadic attacks, across the region. Apparently exasperated with the situation, the United States Africa Command (Usafricom) is offering to send a special operations mission to Nigeria to find a final solution to the problem.
A Usafricom spokesman said: “At the request of the Nigerian government, the Special Operations Command Africa (Socafrica) component of Usafricom conducted a preliminary assessment regarding the feasibility of resuming a limited advise-and-assist mission alongside select Nigerian units. Proposals envisaged sending in a platoon-sized team of between 12 and 30 troops and these proposals are pending approval from various government departments and military officials.
Last October, the US sent 300 military personnel to Cameroon to operate surveillance drones but this has proved inadequate. A Nigerian presidential source confirmed that the US has proposed additional military assistance against Boko Haram, without giving details.
Jennifer Cooke, the Africa programme director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee this week that there is an urgent need to prevent Boko Haram from regenerating and possibly coming back more virulent, destructive, and globally connected than before. Its chairman Ed Royce welcomed the proposals, adding that the US can provide the high-level guidance that is crucially missing in the fight against Boko Haram.
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