Niger and Chad Battle Boko Haram in Joint Offensive

Reports early on Sunday, March 8th, from the capital city of Naimey, Niger, confirm that a “joint ground and air offensive” has been executed against the jihadist group known as Boko Haram along the country’s shared northern border with Nigeria. The swift joint assault was conducted right on the heels of the African Union’s endorsement to gather an 8,000-plus-strong “regional force to combat Boko Haram” two days before.

An unnamed source within the Nigerian military claimed that the ‘green light’ for the operation came from President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet in the capital city of Abuja, Nigeria. Chadian military spokesman Colonel Azem Bermandoa went on to confirm Chad’s involvement in the operation by stating that, “We can confirm that Chadian and Nigerian forces launched an offensive this morning from Niger. The offensive is underway.”

Radio Station Anfani, a civilian-owned radio station in the northern border town of Diffa, Niger, began reporting as early as Saturday evening and into dawn Sunday that aircraft were targeting suspected Boko Haram positions just across the border into Nigeria. Then, as the afternoon approached, citizens of Diffa and Radio Anfani began reporting 200 to 300 modified vehicles weighed down with heavy machine guns being followed by tanks, ambulances, water tankers, and transport trucks loaded with troops leaving barracks in Diffa and spearheading down the N1 highway on their way toward the Nigerian border. A short time later, heavy fighting and explosions could be heard from the area of the Komadugu river crossing. The Nigerian military reported fighting near the border river and reported that the plan was to push farther south into the Nigerian town of Damasak and Malam Fatori.

This past Friday, the African Union endorsed the formation of an 8,000- to 10,000-strong regional military force comprised mostly of the strategically significant countries of Niger, Benin, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Chad. These countries almost form a geographic ‘horseshoe’ around Nigeria and the fertile Niger Delta, and according to the AU, have complete autonomy throughout the region to include ‘free passage’ into other countries within the coalition. It was established that the headquarters of the regional forces will be located in N’Djamena, the capital city of Chad. And within the capital city, the United States maintains its continued support and presence by providing actionable intelligence and surveillance via MQ-1 Predator drone aircraft. And has been doing this since May 2014.

There are reportedly 100 U.S. armed military personnel located along the fringes of the military side of Naimey, Niger’s international airport. The Niger drone base was discovered and reported on in mid 2013 and is known to operate both Predator and the larger Global Hawk flights into and out of the Sahel region in search of Mokhtar Belmokhtar and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), along with Nigerian-border surveillance flights in search of Boko Haram training and operations sites in the south. This Niger drone operation was set up not unlike the Burkina Faso drone base, which was suspected to be linked to a classified JSOC surveillance program called Creek Sand in which U.S. personnel and contractors purportedly ran reconnaissance and surveillance flights for Joint Special Operations.

The Joint Special Operations Air Detachment maintained that Creek Sand was established to support “medical evacuation and logistics requirements,” and left it at that. It is thought that the successes from the Niger drone operations in providing valuable intelligence to French and Malian forces attempting to thwart the Tuareg uprisings in Mali drove the Obama administration to attempt yet another mobile drone base in Chad. The administration notified Congress in May 2014 that, under the War Powers Act, he would be sending 80 armed U.S. personnel to N’Djamena, Chad in response to Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 300 Chibok girls earlier that month in neighboring Borno State, Nigeria.

In a letter, the president explained that, “These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area.” President Obama continued to emphasize that point: “The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required.” The White House and Pentagon broke it down like this: 40 personnel to maintain and fly the Predator, the other 40 to protect the task force.

With Chad’s overwhelming battlefield successes against Boko Haram in recent months, combined with today’s joint air and ground offensive, the fundamentalist group is on its heels. In fact, Boko Haram’s leader is literally ‘phoning a friend’ on social media. It’s only a matter of time until the regional forces, along with a little help from the West, will reclaim the northern states of Nigeria from the bloody rule of Abubakr Shekau and Boko Haram.