Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari pledged $100 million on Thursday to fund a regional force against Boko Haram Islamist militants.

At a meeting with the presidents of Chad, Niger, Benin and the defence minister of Cameroon, Buhari called for international assistance to help sustain funding for the Multinational Joint Task Force comprising troops from those countries with the exception of Benin.

“Our campaign against Boko Haram must be seen within the wider context of the global war against terror. Terrorism has no frontiers and must, because of the great implication for regional and global peace and security, be defeated,” he said in his speech.

Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands of people in North-Eastern Nigeria and neighboring countries in its six-year-old campaign to impose its version of Islamic law, or Shariah, on Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria’s population of about 180 million is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.

Borno and Adamawa States have borne the brunt of the violence. Chief of Army Staff, Kenneth Minimah visited troops fighting there, congratulating soldiers for having “turned the tide” against Boko Haram, army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.

One of Buhari’s first acts after he was sworn in as president of Africa’s biggest economy on May 29 was to visit leaders in neighboring Niger and Chad for talks on regional cooperation against the Islamist militants.

•Text courtesy of Bloomberg. Photo shows Boko Haram insurgents.

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