Israel on Sunday joined the bid to find the 223 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
fighters in Nigeria's restive northeast four weeks ago, but Washington said U.S. troops would stay out of any rescue mission.
"There's no intention, at this point, to (put) American boots on the ground," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told ABC television, admitting that finding the girls would be no easy task.
Nigeria's President
Goodluck Jonathan... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone and accepted an offer for assistance in finding the girls, who were kidnapped from their school dormitory in the town of Chibok, Borno state, on April 14.
Jonathan told Netanyahu that "Nigeria would be pleased to have Israel's globally acknowledged anti-terrorism expertise deployed to support its ongoing operations", according to the president's front man Reuben Abati.
Britannia, the United States and La Belle France have already sent specialist teams and equipment to help Nigeria's military in the search concentrated in the remote northeast, which has been hit by five years of deadly violence.
| Also known as advisors. More on that here. |
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist...
said a summit on security in west Africa, focusing on Boko Haram, could be held as early as this Saturday "if the countries agree".
"I suggested, with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, a meeting of Nigeria's neighboring countries," he said on Sunday during a visit to Azerbaijan's capital Baku.
The leaders of at least five African countries -- Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin -- may take part, a source close to the president said.
Nigeria's government has been criticized as slow to respond to the crisis and
Abuja has since been forced into action after a groundswell of national and international outrage that has included protest marches across the world.
Jonathan has said he believes the girls are still in Nigeria. Searches were being conducted in the Sambisa forest area of Borno state, where the military has previously found Boko Haram camps and arms caches.
There are fears, however, that the girls may have been moved across the border into Chad and Cameroon.
