The United States military is providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist African leaders in fighting against Islamist Boko Haram.

Reuters reported cross-border operations against Islamist groups have been destroyed in the past due to lack of compatible communications equipment, West African military commanders say. They believe that incompatible equipment makes it harder to coordinate and swap information.

Maj. Gen. James Linder said the U.S. will provide Nigeria with technology that would allow allies to communicate between cellphones, radios and computers as part of an annual counter-terrorism exercise called "Flintlock."

Brig. Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue, the Chadian director of the Flintlock exercises, introduced the idea of improving communications between regional armies.

African leaders have been fighting against Islamist groups in the West African nation from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali to Boko Haram in Nigeria. About 10,000 people died last year in Nigeria as Boko Haram led its campaign intended to carve out an Islamist emirate from northern Nigeria.

As a result, the Lake Chad region and Benin are preparing to join forces of 8,700 men to combat Boko Haram.

"The Lake Chad nations are battling Boko Haram and we have a vested interest in that group of nations' collective success ... What Boko Harm is doing is a murderous rampage, about brutality intolerance and subjugation," Linder said in an interview Monday.

Chad's military has already led attacks against the Sunni jihadist group in Nigeria's border regions.

"Our national leadership has been very clear that more was going to be done ... There is an ongoing discussion on how will we provide additional tools, techniques, and material to partner nations," Linder continued.

The U.S. military will introduce technology that would allow African allies to quickly share intelligence across borders.

"By 2050, one-third of the global population will be on the African continent," Linder said. "The global economy and the global community need stable countries in Africa and that can only happen through African nation states themselves."

America's goal is to enable African nations so that they could be well trained and equipped in facing their own military challenges.

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