Glimmer of hope alas for Chibok girls, UK troops to the rescue

There’s now some light at the end of a long grueling tunnel as UK troops are coming to help Nigerian military forces who claim they now know where the abducted girls are located. Continue to read more….

According to Daily Mail;

Hundreds of British troops are set to be sent to Nigeria to help local forces in their war with Al Qaeda-linked terrorists holding nearly 300 schoolgirls hostage.

Details of the planned deployment emerged as Nigerian officials claimed they now know where the girls are being held but warned any rescue attempt could lead to them being killed by the fanatical Islamist Boko Haram. Air Marshal Alex Badeh, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, said : ‘The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are…but where they are held, can we go there with force? We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.’

He refused to elaborate but negotiation has been continuing through third parties and it emerged yesterday a swap deal had been set-up to free around 50 of the hostages last week in exchange for 100 Boko Haram prisoners but this was blocked at the last minute by President Goodwill Jonathan.

With Nigeria’s military said to be demoralised and outgunned in the face of Boko Haram, plans have been drawn-up for UK soldiers to be flown to West Africa to provide specialist training to Nigerian forces as part of a package of assistance provided by the British government to tackle the threat posed by the increasingly bold militia. Both ministers and military chiefs in London have yet to sanction the plans being put forward by senior officers attached to the specialist UK team sent to Nigerian capital Abuja following the kidnap by the Islamist gunmen of the schoolgirls in April from a school in the north of the country.

Officials stress the troops would not be involved directly in the hunt for the girls or take an active role in any military action against Boko Haram which has carried out a series of devastating bombings across Nigeria.

The UK government is said to be anxious to give the Nigerian administration of President Jonathan help in providing security against the terrorists without committing any UK troops to ‘high risk’ deployments such as the hunt for the girls or placing them in a position where they could be drawn in to fighting the well-armed Boko Haram gunmen.

Britain, France and the United States already have Special Forces, anti-terror experts and specialists in hostage negotiation in Nigeria helping to pinpoint where the girls – abducted at gunpoint from their school at Chibok in Borno province on April 14 – are being held.

Britain, the US and France have been using aerial surveillance, satellite intercepts and evesdropping on telephone calls made between suspected representatives of the kidnappers and their supporters to track the movements of Boko Haram gunmen.

The girls, who were mainly Christian, are thought to be held in the vast Sambisa forest reserve, which is three times the size of Wales, close to the border with Chad and Cameroon. Their plight has led to an international social media campaign to free them spearheaded by Michelle Obama and backed by politicians and celebrities, including David Cameron, Angelina Jolie and Leona Lewis.

Mr Cameron along with the US and France have all made a priority of helping to improve security in the region – Chad, Niger, Benin and Cameroon have all experienced problems from Islamist extremists. It is to help with security that Britain is considering sending a ‘Short Term Training Team’ to Nigeria where troops have complained of being ‘no match’ for Boko Haram, who have threatened to sell the girls into slavery in neighbouring countries.

Soldiers in the north say they have been issued with just 60 bullets and are said to be demoralised following a number of attacks by the extremists with dozens defecting to the terrorist’s own ranks.

Nigerian troops have complained they are not properly paid, are dumped in dangerous bush with no supplies and that the Boko Haram extremists holding the girls are better equipped than they are.

Some soldiers have said officers enriching themselves off the defence budget have no interest in halting the five-year-old uprising that has killed thousands.

The military also is accused of killing thousands of detainees held illegally in their barracks, some by shooting, some by torture and many starved to death or asphyxiated in overcrowded cells.

The role of a British force would be to help restore morale and train elements of the Nigerian army in how to track and fight Boko Haram, whose name means ‘Western education is forbidden’ in the local Hausa language.

Until recently Britain had a training facility in West Africa in Ghana where UK military instructors trained west African countries in readiness for their deployments with the African Union on a project called Exercise African Winds.