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| Women attend a demonstration calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped schoolgirls of the Chibok secondary school, in Abuja, Nigeria, Tuesday, May 13, 2014. A Nigerian government official said "all options are open" in efforts to rescue almost 300 abducted schoolgirls from their captors as US reconnaissance aircraft started flying over this West African country in a search effort. Boko Haram, the militant group that kidnapped the girls last month from a school in Borno state, had released a video yesterday purporting to show some of the girls. A civic leader said representatives of the missing girls' families were set to view the video as a group later today to see if some of the girls can be identified. |
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flew over Nigeria in search of the nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls Tuesday, a day after the Boko Haram militant group released the first evidence that at least some of them are still alive and demanded that jailed fighters be swapped for their freedom.
A Nigerian government official said
"all options" were open - including negotiations or a possible military
operation with foreign help - in the effort to free the girls, who were
shown fearful and huddled together dressed in gray Islamic veils as they
sang Quranic verses under the guns of their captors in a video released
Monday.
The footage was verified as authentic
by Nigerian authorities, who said 54 of the girls had been identified
by relatives, teachers and classmates who watched the video late
Tuesday.
The abduction has spurred a global
movement to secure the girls' release amid fears they would be sold into
slavery, married off to fighters or worse following a series of threats
by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.
Protesters
marched through the streets of the capital, Abuja, Tuesday to demand
more government action to find and free the girls, who are believed to
be held in the vast Sambisi forest some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from
the eastern town of Chibok, where they were seized from their school on
April 15.
A U.S. reconnaisance mission was
being carried out by a manned MC-12 surveillance aircraft, which is
based in Niger, according to senior U.S. defense officials in
Washington. In addition to the turboprop model which has seen heavy use
in Afghanistan, U.S. officials were also considering the use of drones.
Gen.
David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command, was in Abuja on Tuesday
meeting with officials at the U.S. Embassy, according to the defense
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The
Nigerian military said in a statement that Rodriguez visited Nigeria's
defense headquarters to discuss U.S. support for Nigeria's campaign
against the Boko Haram militants, who have killed more than 1,500 people
this year in a campaign of bombings, massacres and kidnappings.
Nigeria's
government initially said there would be no negotiations with Boko
Haram, but that stance appeared to have been relaxed amid growing public
outrage at home and abroad over the failure to rescue the girls.
Mike
Omeri, the director of the government's information agency, said all
options were being considered, including the possibility of a military
operation with foreign help.
"At the moment,
because all options are open, we are interacting with experts, military
and intelligence experts from other parts of the world," he said late
Monday. "These are part of the options that are available to us, and
many more."
In a statement late Tuesday,
authorities in Borno state said that 54 girls in the video had been
identified by relatives and friends, including four of some 50 students
who managed to escape their captors. At least 276 girls are still
missing.
"Fifty-four of the girls in the video
have been identified by their names in an exercise that involved some
parents of the girls, fellow students, some teachers, security men and
some officials of the Borno state government," said Isa Umar Gusau, a
spokesman for the Borno state governor.
In the
video, a camouflage-clad Shekau appeared separately from the girls, an
assault rifle slung over his chest, and warned menacingly: "I swear to
almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our
brothers that you have captured."
He said the girls, most of whom are Christians, had converted to Islam.
Boko
Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful," has waged a
five-year campaign of bombings, massacres and abductions that has killed
thousands in its drive to impose an Islamic state on Africa's most
populous nation. It has tried to root out Western influence by targeting
schools, as well as attacking churches, mosques, government buildings
and security services in the country of 170 million, divided between a
predominantly Christian south and Muslim north.
On
Tuesday, President Goodluck Jonathan asked the National Assembly to
extend the state of emergency in Borno and two other northeastern states
for another six months. The emergency, first imposed in May 2013, and
extended in December, has been fiercely opposed by many northern
politicians who argue that it has created great hardships for the local
population while allowing the military to commit rights abuses even as
it fails to curtail the insurgency.
Nigerian
security forces have moved quickly to force the militants from urban
centers, but have struggled for months to dislodge them from rural areas
and hideouts in mountain caves and the dense Sambisa forest bordering
Cameroon.
Britain and the U.S. are now
actively involved in the effort to rescue the missing girls. Britain,
which has dispatched security experts to Nigeria, said it was also
offering "longer-term counter-terrorism solutions to prevent such
attacks in the future and to defeat Boko Haram."
Pentagon
Spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the U.S. was coordinating its efforts
with other allies in Nigeria. Countries including Israel and Spain have
also offered to help.
Meanwhile, Nigeria's
government said in a statement late Tuesday that Interpol has issued a
red alert for the arrest of a terror suspect known as Aminu Sadiq
Ogwuche, an army deserter who is accused of playing a role in a deadly
April 14 bombing in Abuja blamed on Boko Haram.
