The United States has reduced its flight operations in the search of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls who were taken bu the Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram.
Rear Admiral John Kirby who is the Pentagon press secretary while addressing reporters said that they have not been able to trace the location of the girls but the same effort to rescue them was still being sustained.
“We don’t have any better idea today than we did before about where these girls are, but there’s been no letup of the effort itself,” Kirby told reporters, according to Reuters.
Another US defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the US had reduced its frequency of surveillance flights after gathering the required intelligence and the support entry of the British and French support in the operation.
He said the US military personnel are still in the country assisting in the rescue while 80 others are in Chad to support the operation.
Another official said the terrorist group may booby trapped areas where the girls are held and might have been split the girls into smaller groups.
According to news reports, about 300 schoolgirls were abducted by the Islamist terrorist group from their school dormitory in the middle of the night. Most of the girls are Christians from the predominantly Christian town of Borno.
The abduction of the girls has been turned into a political issue in Nigeria as the 2015 presidential elections approaches. The opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, seeking to oust President Goodluck Jonathan from office and replace him with a hard-line islamist, General Muhammadu Buhari, has created a campaign around the issue.
