The U.S. Army will begin providing intelligence and communications equipment to African allies in an attempt to help in the fight against Boko Haram.
According to Reuters, the US Army will be sharing the “cloud-based…’RIOS system'” with Western Africa military personnel. This will “allow soldiers in the field to transmit photos form a remote location in the Sahel immediately to a central command room.”
The system through which these photos are transmitted will also pin-point the exact location of the soldier or soldiers fighting against Boko Haram, thereby making the issuance of backup or supplies much quicker. The system will also allow Western African military personnel to mark a target for an air strike.
The “RIOS system” will be shared during the upcoming “Flintlock” counter-terrorism exercises in Chad. In this way, the U.S. Army will not only share the intelligence and mapping system, but will also be there for hands-on instruction in how to use it.
On December 6, 2009 Breitbart News reported that Boko Haram had begun undertaking a religious war against Christians in Nigeria. In three years’ time, they had killed over 3,000 people, the majority of whom were Christians.
From that point their expansion has continued unabated, including the abduction of hundreds of girls from a secondary school in Chibok in April. By September 2014, they controlled a swath of land as large as Ireland and pledged to rule it as a caliphate in a fashion similar to ISIS’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
More recently–on February 18–Breitbart News reported that Boko Haram threatened violent attacks against the Nigerian government if that government moves forward with presidential elections. Part of the threat is the promise to “enslave” supporters of “Francois Hollande and Obama.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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