{"id":309778,"date":"2017-04-11T11:37:40","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T11:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=309778"},"modified":"2017-04-11T11:37:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T11:37:40","slug":"trump-administration-to-sell-nigeria-planes-for-boko-haram-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=309778","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration ‘to sell Nigeria planes’ for Boko Haram fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration plans to sell fighter planes to Nigeria despite concerns over rights abuses and a botched air strike that killed scores of civilians in January, US media say.<\/p>\n

Up to a dozen A-29 Super Tucano aircraft would be sold to Nigeria to help fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram, unnamed US officials said.<\/p>\n

The deal, which is not yet official, will require approval from Congress.<\/p>\n

Boko Haram’s deadly insurgency has displaced more than two million people.<\/p>\n

The deal, said to be worth up to $600m (\u00a3490m), was agreed by the Obama administration, but was reportedly halted on the day it was due to be sent to Congress, after a catastrophic incident involving the Nigerian military.<\/p>\n

About 90 people, mainly women and children, were killed in January when the Nigerian Air Force mistakenly bombed a camp in the country’s north-east, which was hosting thousands of those who had fled Boko Haram.<\/p>\n

An aid distribution was taking place at the time of the attack, according to medical charity MSF.<\/p>\n

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Image copyrightREUTERS\/MSF MSF said the Nigerian Air Force plane circled twice before dropping the bombs<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Nigerian government indicated last month that the deal might be back on, following the first phone call between President Muhammadu Buhari and President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

“President Trump assured the Nigerian president of US readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism,” Mr Buhari’s office said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The US congressional source said human rights concerns remain, despite support for the sale from some lawmakers, Reuters news agency reports.<\/p>\n

The US Air Force described the A-29 aircraft as a “game-changer” when they were deployed in Afghanistan in 2016.<\/p>\n

They can be armed with two wing-mounted machine guns and can carry up to 1,550 kg of weapons.<\/p>\n

But the aircraft that would be sold to Nigeria come with a “very basic armed configuration,” one of the unnamed US officials told Reuters.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration plans to sell fighter planes to Nigeria despite concerns over rights abuses and a botched air strike that killed scores of civilians in January, US media say. Up to a dozen A-29 Super Tucano aircraft would be sold to Nigeria to help fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram, unnamed US officials said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[5225,751,109],"class_list":["post-309778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-boko-haram","tag-nigeria","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}