By Daniel Flynn
N’DJAMENA, Feb 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. military will share communications equipment and intelligence with African allies to assist them in the fight against Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, the commander of U.S. Special Forces operations in Africa said.
West African military commanders have long complained that cross-border operations against Islamist groups, from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali to Boko Haram in Nigeria, have been obstructed by lack of compatible communications equipment, making it hard to swap information and coordinate.
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“It’s the things that we find from flying over a target and having an FMV, a full motion video, or being able to take pictures, or being able to do a different type of geo-spatial analysis or predictive analysis on the enemy,” he said.
Washington’s long-term goal was to enable African nations to be sufficiently trained and equipped to face their own security challenges, Linder said.
“By 2050, one-third of the global population will be on the African continent,” he said. “The global economy and the global community need stable countries in Africa and that can only happen through African nation states themselves.” (Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Joe Bavier, Giles Elgood, Peter Graff, Toni Reinhold)
