U.S. sends surveillance planes, satellite images to help search for abducted Nigerian girls
The United States is now providing manned Defense Department aerial surveillance planes over Nigerian territory and sharing commercial satellite images with Nigeria as part of efforts to find the girls, two senior Obama administration officials told CNN's Elise Labott on Monday.
There are calls for the United States to send special forces to save the girls kidnapped by terrorist group, Boko Haram.
Congressman Peter King (R-NY) told CNN's Erin Burnett that he'd support President Barack Obama putting boots on the ground in Nigeria.
Scared but alive: Video purports to show abducted Nigerian girls
But could the U.S. send troops to Nigeria to save the girls without losing American lives?
OutFront, Ali Soufan is a Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent who Investigated and supervised a number of high-profile terror cases, including the East Africa Embassy Bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, and the events surrounding 9/11.
View my Flipboard Magazine.
If we were to throw ourselves into Nigeria. . .for any reason. . .it would be a mistake. We wouldn't do it to help Libya extricate itself from a dictatorship, but we'll do it to save these girls? I don't care how good our Special Forces are. . .they are out of their element in the Jungles where these creeps are hiding. Look at how well it's gone for us trying to fight through the mountainous terrain and endless hiding places in Afghanistan. The only way this would work is to first identify and confirm every stronghold of this group and then perform simultaneous hits on each one. Take out every soul on the ground and leave no stone unturned. . .anything that moves_kill it (if it hasn't been identified as a "friendly"). If it's not done that way, we could spend years slogging through that region trying to weed out every little splinter group that attaches itself to the Boko Haram.