{"id":4304,"date":"2015-06-17T07:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T07:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=4304"},"modified":"2015-06-17T07:00:37","modified_gmt":"2015-06-17T07:00:37","slug":"boko-haram-crisis-us-to-fund-nigeria-led-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2015\/06\/17\/boko-haram-crisis-us-to-fund-nigeria-led-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Boko Haram crisis: US to fund Nigeria-led force"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US says it will give $5m (\u00a33.2m) towards a multi-national task force being set up to fight Nigeria’s militant Islamist group Boko Haram.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Boko Haram “was not just a Nigerian problem”, US official Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.<\/p>\n

The group was blamed for suicide bombings which killed more than 20 people in neighbouring Chad on Monday.<\/p>\n

Chad will be the headquarters of the Nigeria-led force of around 7,500 troops from five countries.<\/p>\n

The formation of the force has gained momentum since Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari took office last month.<\/p>\n

Nigeria’s previous administration, led by Goodluck Jonathan, was seen to have dragged its heels over the creation of the force, as it feared it would undermine Nigeria’s sovereignty, correspondents say.<\/p>\n

The US also turned down a request by Mr Jonathan’s administration last year to sell it weapons because of the poor human rights record of its military.<\/p>\n

The issue led to a diplomatic row, with Nigeria accusing the US of refusing to help land a “killer punch” against Boko Haram.<\/p>\n

G7 ‘wish list’<\/h2>\n

Ms Thomas-Greenfield, the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, said the US was in talks with Mr Buhari’s government on how it could assist more in the campaign against the militants.<\/p>\n

It comes after President Buhari’s visit last week to the G7 summit in Germany where he said Nigeria would welcome more international support in the struggle with the jihadists.<\/p>\n

The multi-national force is expected to be made up of troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin.<\/p>\n

Chad, Cameroon and Niger have been helping Nigeria recapture territory from Boko Haram, but their activities have so far been largely uncoordinated.<\/p>\n

The African Union (AU) backed the creation of a multi-national force in January, saying Boko Haram required a “collective, effective and decisive response”.<\/p>\n

Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency has left some 13,000 people dead and 1.5 million homeless, rights groups say.<\/p>\n

The group has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, which is fighting to establish a global caliphate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US says it will give $5m (\u00a33.2m) towards a multi-national task force being set up to fight Nigeria’s militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Boko Haram “was not just a Nigerian problem”, US official Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. The group was blamed for suicide bombings which killed more than 20 people in neighbouring Chad on Monday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}