US Sends Troops To Chad To Find Missing Girls

The US has sent 80 military personnel to Chad to help find more than 200 girls kidnapped in neighbouring Nigeria, President Barack Obama has said.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and to Senate politicians, the president confirmed the deployment to help trace the students abducted last month by Islamist militants Boko Haram.

"These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area," Mr Obama wrote in the letter.

"The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required."

Mr Obama has faced criticism on Capitol Hill for not doing enough to find the missing girls.

The team, who will be made up mostly of Air Force personnel, is due to arrive on Wednesday and may already be there, according to Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Myles Caggins.

They will operate unmanned, unarmed drones flying out of an airstrip in Chad, he added.

The US last week deployed a smaller team of military, law enforcement, and hostage negotiation advisers to the Nigerian capital of Abuja to help find the girls.

A Pentagon spokesman on Tuesday compared the search to finding "a needle in a jungle".

Rear Adm John Kirby said: "We're talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it's dense forest jungle."

Boko Haram's leader has threatened to sell most of the schoolgirls into slavery if the government does not release detained militants.

Violence continues in Nigeria where Boko Haram was blamed for gun attacks that killed nearly 50 people in three villages in the northeast of the country.

Those assaults come a day after 118 people were killed when two car bombs exploded at a market and bus terminal in the central city of Jos.