UK Sending Troops To Nigeria To Help Find Missing Chibok Girls

The UK hinted yesterday that it could send troops
to Nigeria as part of efforts to rescue the over
200 female pupils abducted by Boko Haram
terrorists from their school hostel in Chibok,
Borno State last month.
UK PM David Cameron made this known just as
Pope Francis prayed for the safe rescue of the
girls.
Cameron, who has also joined the growing list of
global personalities that have enlisted in the
‘‘Bring Back Our Girls,’’ social media campaign,
said while featuring on the British Broadcasting
Corporation’s Andrew Marr show, that Britain
“will do what we can” to help find the female
pupils.”
Fellow guest and Cable News Network Chief
International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour,
had handed the Prime Minister the sign and asked
if he would like to join the campaign.
Taking it from her, he replied, “Happily.” He later
tweeted, “Proud to support ‘BringBackOurGirls.’
He also told the BBC One programme that he “
rang the Nigerian President(Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan) to offer anything that would be helpful”
in locating and freeing the girls.
Cameron added, “We agreed to send out a team
that includes some counter-terrorism and
intelligence experts to work alongside the bigger
American team that’s going out there(Nigeria).
“We stand ready to do anything more than the
Nigerians would want.”
He said it was unlikely Nigeria would ask for
British troops to help but stated, “I said to
President Jonathan where we can help, please
ask, and we will see what we can do.”
Cameron also spoke of the importance of tackling
extremism around the world.
“This is not just a problem in Nigeria,” he said.
“We’re seeing this really violent extreme Islamism
– we see problems in Pakistan, we see problems
in other parts of Africa, problems in the Middle
East.
“Also, let’s be frank, here in the UK, there is still
too much support for extremism that we have to
tackle, whether it’s in schools or colleges or
universities or wherever.”
He recognised that it was not an easy task to
locate and rescue the girls.
The Prime Minister said, “We can’t just pile in and
do whatever we’d like. “It’s immensely
complicated because they are probably in this
deep area of a jungle that is three times the size
of Wales.
“But it’s good that efforts are being stepped up
and we’ll do what we can.”
The British Foreign Office believes there are “large
information gaps” because of the scale and nature
of the incident.
“The priority for the team in the first instance is
establishing the facts such as the precise
identities of those taken and what has actually
happened to help Nigeria build a better picture,”
an unnamed spokesman for the office said.
[Reported By NAN]