PARIS: West African leaders yesterday agreed to work together to wage "total war" on Boko Haram saying the Nigerian Islamist group had become a regional Al Qaeda that threatened all of them.
Nigeria's neighbours Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, and Western officials, met in Paris to flesh out a
plan enabling them for the first time to share intelligence, co-ordinate action and monitor borders.Although Boko Haram has been fighting for five years, the kidnapping last month of more than 200 girls from a school in the northeast has focused world attention on them.
"Boko Haram is no longer a local terrorist group, it is operating clearly as an Al Qaeda operation, it is an Al Qaeda of West Africa," Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said in Paris after the meeting"Without West African countries coming together we will not be able to crush these terrorists," he said.
The countries agreed to launch co-ordinated patrols and rescue operations, share intelligence, put in place a mechanism to prevent weapons' smuggling and monitor borders.
The group has killed more than 3,000 people in its war to establish an Islamic state in mostly Muslim northeast Nigeria.
Meanwhile, a Cameroonian soldier was killed and 10 Chinese nationals were feared kidnapped after an overnight attack in northern Cameroon believed to have been carried out by Boko Haram, police said yesterday.
Nigeria's neighbours Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, and Western officials, met in Paris to flesh out a
plan enabling them for the first time to share intelligence, co-ordinate action and monitor borders.Although Boko Haram has been fighting for five years, the kidnapping last month of more than 200 girls from a school in the northeast has focused world attention on them.
"Boko Haram is no longer a local terrorist group, it is operating clearly as an Al Qaeda operation, it is an Al Qaeda of West Africa," Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said in Paris after the meeting"Without West African countries coming together we will not be able to crush these terrorists," he said.
The countries agreed to launch co-ordinated patrols and rescue operations, share intelligence, put in place a mechanism to prevent weapons' smuggling and monitor borders.
The group has killed more than 3,000 people in its war to establish an Islamic state in mostly Muslim northeast Nigeria.
Meanwhile, a Cameroonian soldier was killed and 10 Chinese nationals were feared kidnapped after an overnight attack in northern Cameroon believed to have been carried out by Boko Haram, police said yesterday.
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