Under the glare of the Saharan sun, a U.S. special forces trainer corrects the aim of a Chadian soldier as he takes cover behind a Toyota pick-up and fires at a target with his AK47 -- a drill that could soon save his life.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday urged countries to tackle violent Islamist militancy around the world and rejected as "an ugly lie" suggestions that the West was at war with Islam and embroiled in a clash of civilizations.
A Nigerian armored personnel carrier spattered with blood, riddled with bullets and towed into an army base in northern Cameroon is a potent reminder of Boko Haram's ability to strike across borders in its six-year war for an Islamic state.
High-profile attacks such as the abduction 300 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan are a fraction of what is suffered by girls trying to get an education, the U.N. human rights office said on Monday.
African nations pulling together a regional force to fight Nigeria's Boko Haram militants on Saturday pledged 8,700 soldiers, policemen and civilians, an increase from earlier estimates for the mission.
Nigeria's electoral commission says it is postponing the Feb. 14 presidential election until March 28 due to security concerns, caving in to pressure from the ruling People's Democratic Party in a move likely to enrage the opposition.
France has sent military advisers to Niger's southern border with Nigeria to help coordinate military action by regional powers fighting the Islamist group Boko Haram, a French army official said on Thursday.
A bomb blast that went off just minutes after Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan left an election campaign rally was the work of a female suicide bomber, police said on Tuesday.
Chadian forces have killed 120 militants from Boko Haram in a battle in the north of neighbouring Cameroon that began when the insurgents attacked its troops, the army said in a statement on Saturday, adding that three of its soldiers were killed.
France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is ready to be used to support military operations against Islamic State in Iraq, French President Francois Hollande told military personnel aboard the vessel on Wednesday.
Chad's prime minister has appealed for international aid for thousands of Nigerian refugees who fled attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram across the border into the Lake Chad region.
Nigeria has sentenced 54 soldiers to death by firing squad for mutiny while fighting against insurgents in the northeast, their lawyer said on Thursday.
French President Francois Hollande warned African leaders on Saturday against trying to hang on to power, praising peaceful political transitions in Burkina Faso and Tunisia as positive examples to the continent.
Chad's President Idriss Deby, a wily survivor of rebellions, is looking to bolster his powerbroker role in the Sahel and his nation's own security by backing peace talks between neighbor Nigeria's government and Islamist Boko Haram insurgents.
Chad said it believed Nigeria's secret deal with Boko Haram Islamists to free more than 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls would go ahead despite the breakdown of a truce, and revealed that the key to the agreement was a prisoner swap.
A wave of violence hours after Nigeria's government announced a truce with Boko Haram raised doubt on Sunday about whether more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militants will really be released, deflating the new hopes of their parents.
Protesters demanding the release of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped six months ago by Islamist militants, demonstrated infront of the president's home on Tuesday, urging the government to do more to free them.
Twenty-seven hostages seized by militant group Boko Haram in Cameroon in May and July have been released, including 10 Chinese workers and the wife of Cameroon's vice-prime minister, authorities said on Saturday.
Leaders of Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Benin on Tuesday announced plans to step up the fight against Boko Haram with an additional battalion and a command center to tackle the militants whose insurgency has spread beyond Nigeria, a statement said.
The leader of Nigeria's Islamist group Boko Haram said his fighters were now ruling the captured northeastern town of Gwoza "by Islamic law", in the first video to state a territorial claim in more than five years of violent insurrection.
