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By John Irish
PARIS (Reuters) - Britain offered on Saturday to send advisers to help the Nigerian military organise its efforts to fight Boko Haram rebels, who have kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls and threaten to destabilise the wider region.
British Foreign Minister William Hague, speaking before the start of a meeting of Western and African leaders in Paris, said the Nigerian military was not organised in a way to deal effectively with the Islamist group.
French President Francois Hollande told the meeting that Boko Haram was now a threat to all Western and Central Africa - a point that was supported by reports of a suspected Boko Haram attack on a Chinese work site in Cameroon on Friday might.
Although Boko Haram have been fighting for five years, carrying out many bombings and attacks on civilians as well as security forces, the kidnapping last month of more than 200 girls from a school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, has focussed world attention on them.
Outrage over the mass abduction prompted Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan - criticised at home for his government's slow response - to accept U.S., British and French intelligence help in the hunt for the girls. France, itself a target of Islamist militants for its military intervention against rebels in Mali, brought together Nigeria's neighbours Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, and Western officials for the Paris meeting to try to improve cooperation in the fight against the militants.
"Nigerian security forces have not been well structured for this kind of thing and that has been shown by the problem getting worse," Hague told reporters. "We can help with that which is why we are offering to embed military advisers within the Nigerian headquarters." But Nigeria must still lead the way, he said.
"Nigeria has the main responsibility and must be the leading nation in tackling this and that includes to mount an effective security response and improve development," he said.
The Nigerian military must uphold human rights as it goes about its task, the British minister added. Continued...
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