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The US, China, France and the UK have all pledged to assist Nigeria in rescuing the schoolgirls who were kidnapped by radical¹ Islamist sect² Boko Haram on April 14th. Meanwhile, global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has claimed that the Nigerian military had advanced warning of the kidnapping, but failed to stop it. 

The report by Amnesty International quotes what the watchdog described as credible³ sources confirming that the Nigerian military base in the northeastern city of Maiduguri had intelligence report of the impending⁴ attack on the school where the girls were abducted⁵ but could gather enough troops and resources to engage the militants⁶. The military has not yet reacted to the report.

As for the team from the US, It’s not known what its level of involvement will be in the search and rescue operation or whether it would begin work right away.

France and Britain have also offered support.But neither country has said exactly what expertise⁷ their teams would bring into the operation.

In Nigeria, people are welcoming the international support.

Liborous Oshoma, a political affair analyst⁸ says the government ought to have sort international assistance long before now.

"If it’s just about manpower, we have shown consistently that we have the manpower and we can do it with the manpower. But our manpower has been caught napping more than a hundred times. So it has gone beyond the level of just foot soldiers. It’s now in the realm of technology, strategy, surveillance and forensic⁹ analysis of even to the minutest details." Liborous Oshoma said.

Indeed there are signs that technology would be at the heart of the next phase of the search and rescue of the missing schoolgirls. China for instance has promised to make available any intelligence gathered by its satellite network to the Nigerian government. The British government says it is also deploying¹⁰ its satellites and advanced tracking capabilities¹¹.

Boko Haram had long sought global attention. And somehow it is now getting it. There are fears this attention could further embolden¹² the sect to carry out more daring vicious attacks.

"Yes, it’s already giving them global recognition. But them with this global recognition comes repercussion¹³. And I think if we could really cooperate and put our acts together, the repercussion for the sect might be more damaging than the recognition that they would get." Liborous Oshoma said.

In spite of the global condemnation¹⁴ of its abduction of the schoolgirls, Boko Haram launched another attack Monday in the border town of Gamboru Ngala, killing¹⁵ over 300 people.

For now the country’s attention is focused on freeing the over 200 abducted girls.

It’s been 24 days since they were kidnapped from this school and their classrooms burnt down.

US intelligence officials are now confirming that the girls may indeed have been split into smaller groups and possibly taken across the border.

If that turns out to be true, then the search and rescue team would have a much harder work to trace and free the girls.