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On Thursday, teams from the US and UK arrived in Nigeria to aid in the search for hundreds of school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram three weeks ago.

The teams include expert military advisors, negotiators and counselors. President Goodluck Jonathan, who has been criticized for his feckless efforts in finding the 234 missing girls, said he hoped the foreign assistance would signal “the beginning of the end of terror” in Nigeria.

A Foreign Office statement said the British experts would be working closely with their US counterparts.

“The team will be considering not just the recent incidents but also longer-term counter-terrorism solutions to prevent such attacks in the future and defeat Boko Haram,” it said.

Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry said: “Our inter-agency team is hitting the ground in Nigeria now and they are going to be working in concert with President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to do everything that we possibly can to return these girls to their families and their communities.”

“We are also going to do everything possible to counter the menace of Boko Haram,” he said.

On Wednesday, President Obama chimed in, saying he hoped the kidnapping would galvanize the international community to take action against Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group who also killed 300 people this week in attacks.

Aside from the mass abduction, the group is said to have killed an estimated 1,500 people this year alone. New reports suggest the men will either sell the kidnapped girls into forced marriages for a dowry of $12, or let them go in exchange for their jailed counterparts. Neither has been confirmed.

We’ll keep you updated on the latest in the search for the missing girls.

SOURCE: BBC | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty