francois olan said they are a surprisingly efficient fighting force. i think the international community has been slow on this. i think most observers would accept that. and, also, i think the african leaders, themselves perhaps, have been reluctant to admit the extent of the problem until now. but as you were describing in your introduction, it is now west africa and central africa where they see the risk spreading. >> tim, do we know whether they have discussed anything about the fate of those kidnapped girls? >> well, they certainly discussed it, but i don't think they had much available to them that they could actually deploy or even talk about exercising. they either negotiate, which they ruled out, or they go for possible military action fraught with difficulty as president olan said, we don't know where they are and if we found out where they were, it's quite possible they are now split up into separate groups and given boko haram's record, i suspect the leaders believe that if they got wind of any pending military assault, there could be furthe