Barack Obama sends 80 US troops to Chad to search for abducted Nigeria girls

BARACK Obama sends US troops to help rescue the nearly 300 girls kidnapped in Nigeria, vowing to keep them there until the job is done.

THE United States has deployed 80 military personnel to Chad to help locate the nearly 300 girls kidnapped in Nigeria last month, President Barack Obama has said.

President Obama, in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and the Senate, notified lawmakers about the latest steps underway to assist in the return of the abducted girls.

He said the service members will help with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria.

The force will stay in Chad until its support is no longer necessary, President Obama said.

Chad shares a portion of its western border with north-eastern Nigeria.

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Lucky escape ... Joy Bishara, left, and Hadiza Fali, two of the girls that escaped being kidnapped by Islamist extremists by jumping off a truck.

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The girls and young women, all from a school in northern Nigeria, were kidnapped last month by an Islamic extremist group known as Boko Haram.

Dozens escaped, but the group’s leader has threatened on video to sell most of the remaining 276 schoolgirls into slavery if the government does not release detained militants.

The government of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan came under intense criticism for its initial response to the kidnappings.

Since then, the international community has pledged its assistance.

Living on a prayer ... mothers of the kidnapped girls can do nothing but wait and pray for good news.

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Overnight, at least 30 people were killed by militants in a village in northern Nigeria, shortly after twin blasts killed more than 100 people in the central town of Jos.

Gunmen attacked the village of Shawa in the Damboa local government area of Borno State in the early hours of Wednesday, according to local newspaper Leadership.

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Houses as well as stores of maize and millet were burned down, according to witnesses.

The assailants chanted “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” Shawa resident Musa Yakubu told the newspaper.

On Tuesday, at least 118 people were killed in a twin bombing at a crowded market in the Plateau State capital Jos in central Nigeria.

Devastating ... stallkeepers salvage their belongings as rescuers and residents gather at the charred scene following a bomb blast at Terminus market in the central city of Jos.

At least 10 people were killed on Sunday when a car bomb was set off in the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

The African Union said it was planning to send a team of intelligence officers from member nations to Nigeria to help fight Boko Haram.

The group would set up an operation centre in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to exchange information with the Nigerian government.

AU intelligence chiefs also called for a regional task force to hunt down Boko Haram in West and Central Africa.

Absolute carnage ... firefighters and rescuers extinguish a fire at the scene of a bomb blast at Terminus market in the central city of Jos.

In New York, Nigeria’s mission to the United Nations confirmed to DPA on Wednesday that it had requested the UN Security Council to put Boko Haram on its Al-Qaeda Sanctions List.

If the request is granted, the group would face assets freezes, travel bans and arms embargo, from today.

France and five African nations on Saturday “declared war” on Boko Haram during an anti-terrorism summit in Paris.

The sect, which has killed thousands of people in the last several years, was declared a menace to West and Central Africa.