West African leaders to form a multinational force to fight Boko Haram

West African leaders are seriously considering a new multi-national military force that would fight Nigeria's notorious Boko Haram Islamist insurgents. Ghanaian President John Mahama has told Reuters. President Mahama was speaking in his capacity as current chair of West African regional bloc ECOWAS. He said the African leaders would seek authority next week from the African Union to create such a force.

Any such force would represent the most robust international response yet to the militants who have killed thousands over the last year in their campaign for an Islamic caliphate. Boko Haram are threatening to distabilise the region. They have recently launched cross border attacks into Niger and Cameroon.

Boko Haram is seen as the most serious security threat to Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and its biggest energy producer, but President Mahama said the group and militants in Somalia, Kenya, Mali and elsewhere posed a wider risk.

"Terrorism is like a cancer and if we don't deal with it it will keep going. It threatens everybody in the sub region. When it comes to terrorism nobody is too far or too near," he said.

It will take months before an African Union force could be set up and key issues such as who would command it, the location of its headquarters and its financing remain undecided, President Mahama said.

Once set up, however, the African Union could ultimately seek a United Nations Security Council mandate to take over the force as happened in Sudan's Darfur region, he added.

"Nigeria is taking military action and Cameroon is fighting Boko Haram, but I think we are increasingly getting to the point where probably a regional or a multinational force is coming into consideration," he said earlier.

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