News Feature: How US, British forces plan to invade Boko Haram stronghold

BOTH the United States and British anti-terror specialists who arrived Nigeria on Friday have started deploying high-grade surveillance technologies to track down the voice, location and the fire power of Boko Haram terrorists who kidnapped over 200 girls of a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State.

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According to reports on Friday by Daily Mail of the United Kingdom and other news channels monitored by the Saturday Tribune, the deployment and further operation of the exercise is being overseen by the Special Forces, even as there are indications that the Special Forces may deploy, within days, the spy plane called The Sentinel Radar Plane to be operated by the British Royal Air Force Squadron 5 to locate the hideouts of the terrorists.

Both the British and US anti-terror specialists started using aerial surveillance and evesdropping technology on Friday to help pinpoint the position of the terrorists holding nearly 300 schoolgirls hostage. The operation, came as British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was forced to deny that the international community is behaving in a ‘patronising’ way towards the government of Nigeria by sending experts to assist in the hunt for almost 300 abducted schoolgirls.

Western officials have expressed frustration that it took nearly three weeks for the Nigerian authorities to accept help - days which allowed the Boko Haram gunmen and their terrified hostages to scatter and escape into a vast dense forest amid reports some have already crossed the border into neighbouring countries. Mr Cameron stressed that his decision to send a small group of UK experts to offer advice and logistical support - joining Special Forces officers in the capital Abuja - came in response to a request from President Goodluck Jonathan.

Britain, the United States, China and France have all now offered assistance, and former prime minister Gordon Brown has confirmed that air and satellite surveillance is to be extended to neighbouring countries — Cameroon, Chad and Niger — amid fears that the 276 girls kidnapped from a school in the village of Chibok in Borno State three weeks ago may be trafficked across the border to be sold as slaves.

A specialist team from Whitehall and another from the United States arrived in Nigeria to help co-ordinate the hunt and any rescue operation with Special Forces on standby to support and provide expertise for Nigerian-led raids. Daily Mail reported further that SAS ‘electronic teams’ deployed with Nigerian officers are to attempt to intercept any voice communication across a huge area of jungle. They will use sophisticated jamming equipment called to listen and intercept anything that ‘moves or speaks’ and collate signals intelligence.

“Following requests from SAS officers deployed to Nigeria, UK ministers are said to be reviewing the potential of deploying a Sentinel surveillance aircraft, which would operate out of the French military base at N’djamena in Chad. “The Sentinel ‘radar’ plane, operated by the RAF’s 5 Squadron at Waddington, could be deployed within days, but British and American defence ministers are waiting to see if the Americans are going to provide additional aerial surveillance.

“The British officers have highlighted that the Nigerians need to isolate the extremists, if possible, in order to make sure they cannot strike at more targets before any rescue is mounted,” the report said.
Asked about suggestions in Nigeria that the offer of international help was patronising, Mr Cameron said: “We want to work with them and to help, but we are certainly not patronising the Nigerian government.

“This is an extremely difficult situation. These girls have been kidnapped and taken into a jungle area three times the size of Wales. It is an incredibly difficult thing grappling with these extremist Islamist groups that are prepared to go to any lengths and do appalling things.
‘That is why we have a long-standing arrangement with the Nigerian government and we have police advisers and military advisers who work with them long before this crisis started. We offered help right after the abduction was made and we are now stepping up what we are doing, but all the time working with and asking the Nigerian government what they want.
“I spoke directly with the president myself and made an offer which he accepted. But I wouldn’t want to go beyond what it is they want us to do,” Cameron said.
Mr Brown, who is the United Nations special envoy on global education, said that he had spoken to US Secretary of State, John Kerry, who agreed that air and satellite surveillance would be extended into neighbouring countries.

The former PM urged British people to sign the Bring Back Our Girls petition, which he said was putting pressure on the Nigerian government to take action and making clear that the international community shared the ‘revulsion’ of ordinary Nigerians for Boko Haram. US First Lady, Michelle Obama, is among dozens of political figures and celebrities, including Jessie J., Angelina Jolie, Leona Lewis, Hillary Clinton, schoolgirl Malala Yusafzay and model Cara Delevingne to have backed the petition.

Speaking from Abuja, Mr Brown said: “The more people who can sign the petition, the more I think the Nigerian government officials and others will want to take action.” He said: ‘The first thing is to locate the girls. It is every parent’s nightmare that your daughter or son could be kidnapped and you never see them again, and particularly so as the danger is that they are being trafficked into other countries as sex slaves. “I have been working with the UK and US governments and now China and France to get the resources for surveillance for locating these girls - satellite and also air coverage.

“I hope we can have a special push over the next few days to see if we can find the girls. But we have also got to make the schools safe for other girls and boys who are afraid of the terrorists.” Asked whether the authorities in Abuja were doing enough to find the girls, Mr Brown said: “I don’t think you can have any doubt now about the urgency with which this is being addressed. I have been pressing for action for three weeks. We have got a combination of international resources and we have got a government which is prepared now to take action about the schools in the country.

“We are going to have an action plan within the next few days. But of course the first thing is to see can we get these girls, who have been so sadly removed from their homes, can we get them back? That’s where the energy is in the next few days.”