W. African force to battle Boko Haram.
A screen grab taken on August 24, 2014 from a video released by the
Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. A regional force put in
place to counter the Boko Haram jihadist group in Nigeria will start
operations in November. PHOTO | AFP
A regional
force put in place to counter the Boko Haram jihadist group in Nigeria
will start operations in November, West African leaders decided after a
summit in Niger Wednesday.
The leaders agreed to speed
up the creation of a headquarters for the force and have military
battalions deployed “to our respective borders” by November 1, the heads
of state said in a joint statement.
The new
headquarters for the force is now due to be completed by November 20,
the leaders added. The announcement followed a day of talks between the
leaders of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin, and the foreign minister of
Cameroon.
“After gaining independence, the survival of
our countries has never been so threatened by the menace of terrorism,
by the forces of division and by organised crime,” said Niger’s
President Mahamadou Issoufou who hosted the summit.
In
July, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon had each pledged 700 soldiers to
create a multi-national force to fight the Nigeria-based group, which
has killed more than 10,000 people since 2009.
TWO DOZEN TOWNS
The militants are thought to be in control of more than two dozen towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria.
Nigeria’s military has struggled to meet a vow to retake all lost ground as part of an offensive launched in May 2013.
In
May, African leaders agreed at a Paris summit called by French
President Francois Hollande to cooperate against the group through a
slew of measures including joint border patrols and intelligence
sharing.
Boko Haram’s violent five-year campaign for
an Islamic state has killed thousands and threatens the stability of
countries in west and central African regions.
In the
past two months, it has progressed from bombings, raids and kidnappings
to trying to seize territory in remote areas near Nigeria’s border with
Cameroon, possibly inspired by similar moves by Sunni Islamist militants
in Iraq and Syria.
The militants have also carried
out incursions into Niger and Chad, and authorities fear the attacks
will continue to spread if left unchecked.
The Niamey
meeting is a follow-up to the May summit in Paris where the leaders
promised to improve cooperation in the fight against Boko Haram after
the group kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls and threatened to destabilise
the wider region.
Boko Haram has been active in Nigeria since 2003 and is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The
sect’s name means “Western education is sinful”, and the group has
killed thousands of people in a violent bid to install Sharia law in the
country.
Boko Haram is concentrated mainly in the
northern Nigerian states of Yobe, Kano, Bauchi, Borno and Kaduna and
consider all people, whether Christian or Muslim, who do not follow
their strict ideology as infidels. (AFP and Agencies)
