In a letter to the US Congress, he said: "These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area.
"The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required."
France also has forces in Chad, while Britain and the United States have sent small teams of specialists to Nigeria to assist the Federal Government in the search for the girls.
"It has been a most difficult but heroic breakthrough,"
One senior military official said in Abuja, according to Premium Times.
That claim was supported by another senior commander from the Army's 7 Division, the military formation created to deal with the insurgency in the North-East. The 7 Division is headquartered in Maiduguri, Borno State
capital.
The news is also key for the Maiduguri-based 7 Division a week after a humiliating mutiny by troops of its 101 battalion who fired at the General Officer Commanding the division, Ahmadu Mohammed, a Major General.
Military officers coordinating the search and other officials in Abuja said Boko Haram insurgents split the girls into batches and held them at their camps in Madayi, Dogon Chuku and Meri, all around the Sector 3 operational division of the military detachment confronting the group's deadly campaign.
Another source said there is a fourth camp at Kangarwa, also in Borno State. That claim could not be independently verified.
Sightings
"Our team first sighted the girls on April 26 and we have been following their movement with the terrorists ever since," one of our sources said.
"That's why we just shake our heads when people insinuate that the military is lethargic in the search for the girls," he added.
The location of the abducted girls — North-East of Kukawa — opens a new insight into the logistic orientation of Boko Haram, responsible for thousands of deaths in a five-year long insurgency.
President Goodluck Jonathan said the group had killed at least 12,000 people so far. This figure did not include the hundreds killed in a car bomb, Tuesday, in Jos and the about 10 murdered on Sunday in Kano in a suicide
bombing.
Boko Haram's movement
Details established by the military shows that while the world's attention is focused on the Sambisa forest reserves, about 330 kilometres south of Maiduguri, the terrorists mapped a complex mission that began at Chibok, and veered north east of Sambisa, before heading
to west of Bama and east of Konduga.
With the sighting, officials fear that Boko Haram militants may be seeking to create new options of escape all the way to Lo-gone-Et Chari in Cameroon to its South-East, Lake Chad to its east and Diffa in Niger Republic to its north, providing a multiple escape options in the event of hostile ground operations against it.
Notwithstanding the sighting, the government is said not to be considering the use of force against the extremists, a choice informed by concerns for the safety of the students.
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