Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is calling on the United States for help in combating the growing threat of the Boko Haram.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Jonathan told American reporters that he has made repeated requests to the United States government to provide military advisors and combat resources since last year.
"Are they not fighting ISIS? Why can't they come to Nigeria?" Jonathan said during the interview with WSJ and other American newspapers on Friday.
The incumbent president said Nigerian intelligence indicates that the Islamic State provided resources and training to insurgents now fighting with the Boko Haram.
The Wall Street Journal then spoke to Rear Admiral John Kirby, the press secretary for the US Department of Defence, who confirmed that there have been talks for the US to provide support to Nigeria and its allies in the multinational task force being formed to combat Boko Haram. However, the admiral said that the negotiations were still in their early stages.
Kirby said that there are no US combat troops present in Nigeria at the moment and that US assistance to the African nation is limited to training, equipment and intelligence gathering.
Boko Haram's insurgency has recently increased and elevated the group's threat from local to regional, as it carried out attacks in three other countries in the Lake Chad Basin. Because of the rising threat posed by the group, Nigeria has postponed its elections for six weeks and agreed with Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin to form a combined multinational task force specifically to engage the Boko Haram and curb its threat in the region.
The multinational task force has already begun engaging Boko Haram in the northeastern state of Borno in Nigeria, beginning with an offensive involving Chadian troops and warplanes, and Nigerian military forces, in late January that saw the expulsion of the insurgents from Mafa, Mallam Fatori, Abadam, Marte and Gamboru in Borno.
