The Presidency is angry at the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh for saying that the military knew the location of the schoolgirls, abducted by the Boko Haram Islamic sect on April 14.
Air Marshal Badeh declared, yesterday, that the military was now fighting a bigger battle with the international terrorist organisation known as Al Qaeda with networks in North and West Africa, noting that the ongoing counter terrorism and counter insurgency war has gone beyond Boko Haram .
However, the United States said yesterday, that it does not have information to support the claim by the Nigerian military that it knows the whereabouts of the more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.
Five U.S. and European security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had no credible information on the location of the girls and were skeptical that the Nigerian government knew where they were. The five officials said the United States and some European allies had provided technical intelligence, including information from spy aircraft and satellites, to Nigerian authorities, who lack such intelligence capabilities.
But the officials said that as far as they knew, technical intelligence systems had not produced precise or credible information establishing the girls’ location.
The five officials said that if the Nigerians had obtained such information from informants on the ground, it has not been shared with U.S. and allied agencies.
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