The US said that the squad consists of “specialists on temporary assignment from a variety of US government agencies who are trying to work on assisting the Nigerian government on this particular case.”
Deputy Spokesman of the US Department of State, Mark Toner, who spoke to journalists in in Washington , warned members of Boko Haram to release the girls unconditionally before it is too late for them, stressing that America will continue to work and provide any assistance it can to obtain their eventual release.
Toner said: “we call for all hostages, including these young women and girls who’ve been held by Boko Haram, to be released immediately without preconditions. We support Nigerian efforts to bring about the safe recovery of those kidnapped and we continue to advise them on their response to this, as well as on general counter-terrorism and counter-Boko Haram efforts.”
“And that assistance takes a number of forms. One is intelligence; training, advice on strategic communications, but also victim support services and assistance to those who have suffered under Boko Haram.
“I think we’ve given upwards of $198 million in humanitarian assistance to the populations in Nigeria that have been affected by Boko Haram’s continued attacks, terrorist activity.
“So, we’re looking at ways that we can ramp up our support for Nigeria’s security services and any assistance that we can provide to help the victims of these attacks, whether they’re from the terrorist attacks or kidnap victims as well.” [myad]
