US to Help Rescue Kidnapped Nigerian Girls
May 06, 2014
ABUJA, NIGERIA — U.S. intelligence officials will head to Nigeria to help with the search for 276 schoolgirls abducted last month by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Tuesday. Kerry, who discussed the coordinated approach with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan by phone Tuesday, said the two countries would move immediately to establish a task force at the U.S. embassy in the capital city to provide more expertise on intelligence, investigations and hostage negotiations, as well as information sharing and victim assistance. "We remain deeply concerned about the welfare of these young girls and we want to provide whatever assistance is possible in order to help for their safe return to their families," Kerry said at a news conference at the State Department in Washington. He was joined by European Union foreign policy chief Cathy Ashton, with whom he’d met earlier in the day. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the team heading to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria's capital city would include U.S. military personnel and law enforcement officials trained in investigations and hostage negotiations.
The announcement follows widespread condemnation and anger inside Nigeria and abroad that Jonathan's government has not done enough to rescue the girls, who were kidnapped April 14 from a secondary school. Asked why the United States did not move more quickly to aid in the search, Kerry said the administration had been engaged from the beginning. He implied that it met some initial resistance from the Jonathan government. "You can offer and talk, but you can't 'do' if a government has its own sense of how it's proceeding," Kerry said. "I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort. And it will begin immediately."
Meanwhile, suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped eight more girls between the ages of 12 and 15 from a village near one of their strongholds in northeastern Nigeria overnight, police and residents said earlier Tuesday. Lazarus Musa, a resident of the village of Warabe, told Reuters that armed men had opened fire during the raid. "They were many, and all of them carried guns. They came in two vehicles painted in army color. They started shooting in our village," Musa said by telephone from the village in the hilly Gwoza area, Boko Haram's main base. A police source, who could not be named, said the girls were taken away on trucks, along with looted livestock and food.
On Monday, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened in a video released to the media to sell the abducted girls “on the market.”
May 06, 2014
ABUJA, NIGERIA — U.S. intelligence officials will head to Nigeria to help with the search for 276 schoolgirls abducted last month by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Tuesday. Kerry, who discussed the coordinated approach with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan by phone Tuesday, said the two countries would move immediately to establish a task force at the U.S. embassy in the capital city to provide more expertise on intelligence, investigations and hostage negotiations, as well as information sharing and victim assistance. "We remain deeply concerned about the welfare of these young girls and we want to provide whatever assistance is possible in order to help for their safe return to their families," Kerry said at a news conference at the State Department in Washington. He was joined by European Union foreign policy chief Cathy Ashton, with whom he’d met earlier in the day. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the team heading to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria's capital city would include U.S. military personnel and law enforcement officials trained in investigations and hostage negotiations.
The announcement follows widespread condemnation and anger inside Nigeria and abroad that Jonathan's government has not done enough to rescue the girls, who were kidnapped April 14 from a secondary school. Asked why the United States did not move more quickly to aid in the search, Kerry said the administration had been engaged from the beginning. He implied that it met some initial resistance from the Jonathan government. "You can offer and talk, but you can't 'do' if a government has its own sense of how it's proceeding," Kerry said. "I think now the complications that have arisen have convinced everybody that there needs to be a greater effort. And it will begin immediately."
Meanwhile, suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped eight more girls between the ages of 12 and 15 from a village near one of their strongholds in northeastern Nigeria overnight, police and residents said earlier Tuesday. Lazarus Musa, a resident of the village of Warabe, told Reuters that armed men had opened fire during the raid. "They were many, and all of them carried guns. They came in two vehicles painted in army color. They started shooting in our village," Musa said by telephone from the village in the hilly Gwoza area, Boko Haram's main base. A police source, who could not be named, said the girls were taken away on trucks, along with looted livestock and food.
On Monday, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau threatened in a video released to the media to sell the abducted girls “on the market.”
I pray for the best outcome. Godspeed.
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