Israel Offers Help in Search for Nigerian Girls

JERUSALEM, Israel --The Jewish state is throwing its counter-terrorism expertise into the search for hundreds of kidnapped Nigerian Christian school girls.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan by phone over the weekend that Israel is deeply shocked over the crime against the girls.

Nearly 300 Christian school girls were abducted from their boarding school last month by the al Qaeda-linked terror group Boko Haram.

Netanyahu said Israel is "prepared to help in locating the girls and to fight" what he called the "cruel terror that has struck" Nigeria.

Jonathan was quoted saying that his country "would be pleased to have Israel's globally acknowledged anti-terrorism expertise deployed to support its ongoing operations."

Israel joins the U.S., Britain and France in the search for the abducted school girls.

Boko Haram, whose name loosely translated means "Western education is forbidden," has killed more than 135 children in three separate attacks on schools during the past year or so.

In a recent video, the terror group's leader Abubakar Shekau boasted that he had abducted the girls and would sell them.

Jonathan said he believes the girls are still in Nigeria but there are fears they may have already been taken across the border to Chad and Cameroon.

Nigeria is one of Israel's closest friends in Africa, the Jerusalem Post reported. Israel provided medical supplies to Nigeria following a 2001 Christmas Day attack on three churches by Boko Haram operatives.