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The USA administration is looking for to approve a sale of as many as 12 A-29 Tremendous Tucano mild attack plane to Nigeria to help its battle towards the extremist group Boko Haram, U.S. officers say, in a vote of confidence in President Muhammadu Buhari’s drive to reform the nation’s corruption-tainted army.

Washington is also dedicating extra intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance belongings to the marketing campaign towards the Islamist militants within the area and plans to present further coaching to Nigerian infantry forces, the officers informed Reuters, talking on situation of anonymity to talk about the administration’s plans.

The attainable sale — which the officers stated was favored inside the U.S. administration however is topic to evaluation by Congress — underscores the deepening U.S. involvement in serving to governments in north and west Africa battle extremist teams.

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Michael Franken, a deputy commander of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, informed a Washington discussion board final week that there now are 6,200 U.S. troops – most of them Particular Operations Forces – working from 26 places on the continent.

The widening U.S. army cooperation is a political victory for Buhari, who took workplace final yr pledging to crack down on the rampant corruption that has undermined the armed forces in Africa’s most populous nation.