The United States has alerted the federal government of Nigeria, that the Al-Qaeda insurgent group was already penetrating the North-western part of Nigeria.
Commander of the US Special Operations Command of Africa, Dagvin Anderson, revealed this during a briefing, He also said the group was also expanding to other parts of West Africa.
In his remarks, Anderson said the US would continue to partner with Nigeria in sharing intelligence.
Commander Anderson said: “We have engaged with Nigeria and continue to engage with them in intel sharing and in understanding what these violent extremists are doing. And that has been absolutely critical to their engagements in Borno State and into an emerging area of Northwest Nigeria that we’re seeing al-Qaeda starting to make some inroads in”.
“So, this intelligence sharing is absolutely vital and we stay fully engaged with the government of Nigeria to provide them an understanding of what these terrorists are doing, what Boko Haram is doing, what ISIS-West Africa is doing, and how ISIS and al-Qaeda are looking to expand further south into the littoral areas.”
Commander Anderson stressed that, for international efforts to yield desired results in the fight against terrorism in Nigeria, the government must take the lead.
In his briefing, he said, “When it comes to Nigeria in general, Nigeria, obviously, is a critical nation to West Africa. It is a critical nation and we realize that Nigeria is a lynchpin.”
He added, “For that to have an effect against the VEOs and to have an effect against these stressors, it really takes the government of Nigeria to lead that effort and to build that energy to coalesce around.”
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