ICC Note:
Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, home to the radical Islamic insurgency, Boko Haram, which has plagued Nigeria since 2009, has called on the West for support. Will his request be heard at the upcoming congressional subcommittee hearing on the United States’ involvement in the conflict?
01/23/2014 Nigeria (The Telegraph) – A senior Nigerian clergyman has called for Western ground troops to be sent in to defeat the growing threat from the Boko Haram Islamist group.
Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme, whose diocese in the city of Maiduguri lies in the heart of Boko Haram’s northern strongholds, said that foreign “land forces” were the only way to stop a complete terrorist takeover of the region.
The bishop spoke out in the wake of a series of fresh attacks by the group, including a cross-border raid into neighbouring Cameroon on Sunday in which around 80 local people were taken hostage.
He said that such a campaign could follow the model of the French intervention in Mali in January 2013, where French ground troops and air power swiftly ended an al-Qaeda take-over of cities in the remote northern Sahara region.
“The West should bring in security – land forces to contain and beat back Boko Haram,” said Mr Dashe Doeme, in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity that campaigns on behalf of persecuted Christians worldwide. “A concerted military campaign is needed by the West to crush Boko Haram.”
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