Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls, is no longer a local threat but has become West Africa's Al-Qaeda, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said on Saturday.
"Boko Haram is no longer a local terrorist group, it is operating clearly as an Al-Qaeda operation, it is an Al-Qaeda of West Africa," Jonathan told a news conference in Paris following a meeting of West African leaders on the issue.
"We have shown our commitment for a regional approach. Without West African countries coming together we will not be able to crush these terrorists," Jonathan said.
For his part, Chad's President Idriss Deby said countries neighbouring Nigeria were ready to wage war against Islamist militant group Boko Haram as fears mount the group will spread beyond its borders and destabilise the wider region.
"There is determination to tackle this situation head on ... to launch a war, a total war on Boko Haram," he said after a meeting in Paris to define a common strategy to fight the Islamist group.
This comes after French President Francois Hollande said the Nigerian rebel group Boko Haram was now a threat to west and central Africa and it was linked to other militants, including al Qaeda's North African arm.
"Boko Haram is a major threat for all of western Africa and now central Africa with proven links to AQIM (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and other terrorist organizations," Hollande told a summit of African leaders in Paris.
A comprehensive plan to exchange information, coordinate action and protect borders needed to be put in place immediately, he said.
West African leaders met in Paris on Saturday to try to improve cooperation in their fight against the Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls and threatens to destabilize the wider region.
Outrage over the kidnapping has already prompted Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, criticized at home for his government's slow response, to accept U.S., British and French intelligence help in the hunt for the girls.
Last week he asked France, itself a target of Islamist militants for its military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali, to arrange a summit in Paris with Nigeria's neighbors Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, and Western officials.
French diplomats ruled out any Western military operation but said they expected a regional plan to take shape for countering
Boko Haram, which has killed more than 3,000 people in a five-year campaign to establish an Islamic state in mostly Muslim northeast Nigeria.
"The aim is to come up with an action plan this weekend so that these countries, with the support of the West, cooperate in terms of intelligence gathering, information exchange and border control to stop Boko Haram smuggling weapons and moving freely in this zone," said a French diplomatic source.
"There is absolutely no dialogue between Cameroon and Nigeria," said the source. "Until now, Cameroon has not accepted it has a problem - but it has been destabilized in the north by Boko Haram and in the east by the influx of refugees from Central African Republic. It must talk with Nigeria."
With about 6,000 troops operating in either Mali to the northwest or the Central African Republic to the east, Paris has a major interest in preventing Nigeria's security deteriorating, fearing that Boko Haram could spread north into the Sahel, and beyond Cameroon into the Central African Republic.
REUTERS