UK to Increase Troops Backing Nigeria’s Fight Against Boko Haram

The U.K. plans to increase the number of its troops backing Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram insurgents to more than 300 next year, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said.

“For this year, for example, we have about 130 military personnel here,” Fallon told reporters in the capital, Abuja, on Monday. “Next year more than double, more than 300 are coming to offer training and particularly improve the army’s resilience to improvides explosive devices.”

Fallon, who met with President Muhammadu Buhari, said the Nigerian leader welcomes the U.K.’s offer of support.

Boko Haram Islamist militants in Nigeria have stepped up suicide attacks as the military intensified its offensive to meet a December deadline by Buhari to end the six-year insurgency.
Bloomberg