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.
Meanwhile,
according to two US Army generals, details of the rescue mission were 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.
The report
Said, 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 a 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.
Recently,
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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