RECENT reports from US intelligence sources have revealed that Nigerian
military commanders leaked plans to rescue the abducted Chibok girls to
Boko Haram terrorists which ended up botching the operation.
On
April 14, over 200 pupils were abducted from Government Girls Secondary
School Chibok in Borno State, sparking an international outrage. In
response to the global outcry, the US sent spy planes to Nigeria to help
locate the girls and a plan was agreed with the military to mount a
daring rescue operation.
However, according to two US Army
generals, details of the rescue mission was leaked to Boko Haram before
it could be put into operation, enabling the terrorists to take
preventative action. Accusing the Nigerian Army of treason, the generals
revealed that that the war against Boko Haram was purposefully
sabotaged by the Nigerian government, as if it would not, defeating the
terrorists would not have taken longer than a month.
US sources
pulled out from helping Nigeria rescue the missing Chibok girls after
Washington discovered that Boko Haram had been fed the details of a
covert rescue mission that would involve using gas. Source said that as
soon as the Americans arrived and flew surveillance flights over
Nigeria, they located the girls and proposed gassing the areas in the
Sambisa Forest and then sending in a raid mission to rescue the girls
while their terrorist captors were paralysed asleep.
However,
shortly after Nigeria’s security chiefs were given this plan in high
confidence, its details were leaked to Boko Haram who promptly acted to
foil the plot. On its next surveillance flight over the area, the US
team saw the Boko Haram terrorists all wearing gas masks.
US
agents were very disappointed with this and immediately afterwards,
Washington announced that it will no longer share information with
Nigeria. This was one of the major reasons why the US gave up on a
mission of working with the Jonathan government and eventually pulled
out of the fight against Boko Haram.
According to military
sources, it was this betrayal that led to Washington sanctioning Nigeria
and preventing her from purchasing security equipment because the US is
not convinced of the sincerity of the Jonathan government. Since the
episode, the US has refused to sell Nigeria military hardware amid fears
that it may end up in the hands of Boko Haram, although the official
reason given was the human rights record of the Nigerian Army.
Since
it began its operations in 2009, Boko Haram has always managed to
infiltrate the Nigerian security forces where it has as lot of
supporters and sympathisers. Terrorist cells are regularly tipped off
about military missions and have subsequently been able to lie in ambush
for Nigerian soldiers.
Of late, however, Boko Haram has been on
the back foot since the establishment of the regional Multi National
Joint Task Force. Because the task force is made up of regional
neighbours Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic, Boko Haram has been unable
to infiltrate it, ass their troops have not been compromised.
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