As Nigeria swore in a new president on Friday, the Obama administration signaled that it was prepared to expand military cooperation in the fight against Boko Haram.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who led the American delegation to the inauguration, was expected to offer increased military assistance in a meeting on Friday with Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s new leader.
“Something we can do quickly is to send advisers,” said a senior State Department official, who could not be identified under the department’s protocol for briefing reporters. “It could be related to intelligence; it could be something very simple, related to things like logistics.”
“We certainly hope to be able to do more,” the official added.
Concern over Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect that has been mounting deadly attacks against government and civilian targets since 2010, grew after its April 2014 kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok.
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The abductions led to a widely publicized “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, which sought to raise international awareness of the kidnappings and which Michelle Obama supported in a White House radio address.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/w...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Secretary of State John Kerry, who led the American delegation to the inauguration, was expected to offer increased military assistance in a meeting on Friday with Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s new leader.
“Something we can do quickly is to send advisers,” said a senior State Department official, who could not be identified under the department’s protocol for briefing reporters. “It could be related to intelligence; it could be something very simple, related to things like logistics.”
“We certainly hope to be able to do more,” the official added.
Concern over Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect that has been mounting deadly attacks against government and civilian targets since 2010, grew after its April 2014 kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok.
Continue reading the main story
The abductions led to a widely publicized “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, which sought to raise international awareness of the kidnappings and which Michelle Obama supported in a White House radio address.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/w...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
