 |
| President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou ©John MacDougall (AFP) |
President Mahamadou
Issoufou of Niger on Monday proposed setting up of a multinational West African
force to fight terrorism.
AFP
report continues:
"We
must work to strengthen the mandate and troop strength of MINUSMA to allow it
to mount offensives against all kinds of terrorist forces in northern
Mali," Issoufou said, referring to the United Nations Multidimensional
Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali.
He
was speaking at a summit of the Conseil de l'Entente, a regional five-member
cooperation forum set up in 1959 and currently chaired by Niger.
"Failing
that, to effectively fight terrorism in this brother country, we should set up
a mixed multinational force modelled on the force operating in the Lake Chad
region," he said.
Established
a year ago, that force comprises 8,500 troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Benin
and Cameroon.
"It's
now operational and for several weeks has been mounting effective operations
against Boko Haram," said Issoufou.
"In
the face of terrorism we have no choice but to combine our forces as well as
our defence and intelligence capacities," he said.
Attacks
such as that on Grand Bassam, a coastal town near Ivory Coast's economic
capital Abidjan which left 19 dead in March "show that the theatre of
(terrorist) operations know no bounds," he said.
Presidents
Alassane Ouattara of Côte d'Ivoire, Roch Marc Christian Kabore of Burkina Faso,
Patrice Talon of Benin, and Faure Gnassingne of Togo attended the summit.
Malian
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was there as an observer, as Mali is not a
member of the grouping.
Boko Haram launched its insurgency aimed at setting up an Islamic state in Nigeria seven years ago and has since become active in several other west African states.
No comments:
Post a Comment