Abuja (AFP) - Central and west African leaders will hold a summit next week to fine tune their campaign to crush Boko Haram, who appear to be losing ground in the face of a regional military offensive.

The April 8 talks will be the first since Nigeria's election a week ago which was won by Muhammadu Buhari, a former military leader who has vowed to rid his country of the "terror" the Islamist militants have sown.

Boko Haram, whose rampage through northeastern Nigeria has left more than 15,000 people dead since 2009, is the region's most pressing security problem, having sent refugees fleeing across borders and displaced tens of thousands within Nigeria.

The west African regional bloc ECOWAS said in a statement Sunday that the meeting in the Equatorial Guinea capital Malabo came "in the face of the mounting and increasingly bloody attacks by the fundamentalists against Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad."

The Malabo summit is being jointly organised by ECOWAS and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).

Experts from both groups held a preliminary meetings in Cameroon's economic capital Douala to prepare ground for the summit, ECOWAS said.

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Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaks at an unidentified location (AFP Photo/-)

They tried to fine tune strategy to "eradicate" the group, the statement added, and discussed regional coordination of military strategy and other matters.

- Fight to the finish -

Buhari's historic election win was partly due to outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan's failure to tackle the insurgency, which has sparked worldwide concern.

"I assure you that Boko Haram will soon know the strength of our collective will and commitment to rid this nation of terror and bring back peace," Buhari said last week.

He later told the BBC: "With the co-operation of our neighbours, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and the international community, and the commitment we are going to get from the military, I think it will take us a much shorter time to deal with them."

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Chad soldiers near Diffa airport on April 3, 2015, after the nearby Nigerian town of Malam Fatori wa …

A coalition involving troops from the four countries has been battling the Islamists in a bid to crush the insurgency, which has now spread across borders from Boko Haram's stronghold in northern Nigeria.

The general staff of the Chadian army last week said the nuisance capacity of Boko Haram has been severed reduced by the offensive, although their Nigerien colleagues believe the group still has the ability to wage an "asymmetric war" through suicide attacks and hit-and-run raids.

According to some experts, a major stumbling block in the fight against the group had hitherto been poor intelligence sharing between Nigeria and its neighbours, although this appears to have improved after a joint military force involving the four countries was launched.

It was not immediately clear if Buhari would be attending the summit, as he will not be sworn in as president to succeed Jonathan until May 29.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein last week led an appeal for stronger international support in the fight against the group after the UN Human Rights Council unanimously adopted a resolution to this effect.

"Countless more children, women and men have been abducted, abused and forcibly recruited, and women and girls have been targeted for particularly horrific abuse, including sexual enslavement," Zeid said.

"This despicable and wanton carnage, which constitutes a clear and urgent menace for development, peace and security, must be stopped," Zeid said.

The group recently pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State group of jihadists fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement to the media in Jerusalem April 1, 2015. REUTERS/Debbie Hill/Pool

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the United States on Sunday to seek a better deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and said he would press American lawmakers not to give Tehran "a free path to the bomb."

Netanyahu said he has spoken with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress - nearly two thirds of House of Representatives members and a similar number in the U.S. Senate - about the Iran nuclear issue.

The Israeli prime minister has been strongly critical of the framework agreement struck on Thursday between world powers and Iran, saying it threatens the survival of Israel.

In appearances on U.S. television on Sunday, Netanyahu did not repeat his assertion on Friday that any final agreement should include a commitment by Iran recognizing Israel's right to exist.

"This is not a partisan issue. This is not solely an Israeli issue," Netanyahu said of the interim nuclear agreement, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

"This is a world issue because everyone is going to be threatened by the pre-eminent terrorist state of our time, keeping the infrastructure to produce not one nuclear bomb but many, many nuclear bombs down the line."

Appearing on CNN, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a leading Democratic voice on foreign affairs, said she did not believe the agreement threatened Israel, and had harsh words for Netanyahu.

"I don't think it's helpful for Israel to come out and oppose this one opportunity to change a major dynamic which is downhill, a downhill dynamic in this part of the world," said Feinstein.

Netanyahu angered the White House and alienated some of President Barack Obama's Democrats when he accepted a Republican invitation to address Congress on March 3, two weeks before the Israeli elections that returned him to office.

Netanyahu denied he was coordinating with House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who visited Israel last week, and with other Republicans to block the Iran deal.

Israel, which is believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, says it believes Iran is committed to its destruction.

The Israeli leader denounced the framework agreement between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, saying of Tehran, "They're getting a free path to the bomb."

"There's still time to get a better deal and apply pressure to Iran to roll back its nuclear program," he said on CNN.

"I'm not trying to kill any deal. I'm trying to kill a bad deal," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

LEGISLATION IN THE WORKS

Obama called the agreement reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, a "historic understanding" and told Netanyahu in a telephone call soon afterward that the deal represented progress toward a lasting solution that cuts off Iran's path to a nuclear weapon. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes.

Republicans, who control both chambers in Congress, and some Democrats are preparing legislation which would entail a vote in Congress on any Iran deal. Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was waiting to learn more details about the framework agreement.

"I don't know how someone can ascertain whether this is something good or bad," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Obama has said he would veto legislation demanding an up-or-down vote in Congress on any final deal worked out with Iran by the deadline of the end of June that has been agreed by Iran and the six powers.

Corker said it was unclear whether opponents of the deal would be able to muster the votes needed to override such a veto.

Netanyahu said he had had an hourlong conversation with Obama, with whom he has had strained relations.

Asked on CNN if he trusted Obama, Netanyahu said he was sure the American president was doing what he thought was good for his country, but they disagreed about the best policy on Iran.

"It's not a question of personal trust," Netanyahu said.

The White House has grown used to Netanyahu's opposition. Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, said on CNN, "I don't think we're going to convince Prime Minister Netanyahu."

(Additional reporting by June Torbati and Howard Schneider; Editing by Frances Kerry and David Storey)

Pope, thousands brave rain for Easter in St. Peter's Square

Associated Press Videos
Raw: Pope Francis Leads Easter Vigil Service

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In an Easter peace wish, Pope Francis on Sunday praised the framework nuclear agreement with Iran as an opportunity to make the world safer, while expressing deep worry about bloodshed in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

Cautious hope ran through Francis' "Urbi et Orbi" Easter message, a kind of papal commentary on the state of the world's affairs, which he delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Square.

He had just celebrated Mass in rain-whipped St. Peter's Square for tens of thousands of people, who huddled under umbrellas or braved the downpour in thin, plastic rain-slickers.

Easter day is "so beautiful, and so ugly because of the rain," Francis said after Mass about Christianity's most important feast day. He expressed thanks for the flowers which bedecked the square and which were donated by the Netherlands, but the bright hues of the azaleas and other blossoms seemed muted by the gray skies.

Francis made his first public comments about the recent framework for an accord, reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, and aimed at ensuring Iran doesn't develop a nuclear weapon.

"In hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework recently agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world."

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Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of the Eas …

Decrying the plentitude of weapons in the world in general, Francis said: "And we ask for peace for this world subjected to arms dealers, who earn their living with the blood of men and women."

He denounced "absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence" in Libya, convulsed by fighting fueled by tribal and militia rivalries. He hoped "a common desire for peace" would prevail in Yemen, wracked by civil warfare.

Francis prayed that the "roar of arms may cease" in Syria and Iraq, and that peace would come in Africa for Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan and Congo.

He recalled the young people, many of them targeted because they were Christians, killed last week in a Kenyan university, and lamented kidnappings, by Islamic extremists, that have plagued parts of Africa, including Nigeria.

He also cited bloodshed closer to home, in Ukraine, praying that the Eastern European nation would "rediscover peace and hope thanks to the commitment of all interested parties." Government forces have been battling Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, months after a cease-fire was proclaimed following international diplomatic efforts.

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Pope Francis is framed by Swiss Guards as he celebrates an Easter mass, in St. Peter's square at …

On Good Friday, Francis chastised the international community for what he called the complicit silence about the killing of Christians. On Easter he prayed that God would alleviate "the suffering of so many of our brothers persecuted because of his name."

During Mass, Francis was shielded from pelting rain by a canopy erected outside St. Peter's Basilica, while prelates carried umbrellas in the yellow and white colors of the Vatican.

The downpour petered out to a drizzle, and by the end of the ceremony, the rain had stopped. Francis, wearing a white overcoat, was driven through the square in the open-sided popemobile so he could wave to the faithful.

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Pope Francis celebrates Easter Mass

Nairobi (AFP) - Authorities in Kenya said Sunday they have identified one of the four dead Shebab gunmen who massacred nearly 150 people at Garissa University as an ethnic-Somali Kenyan national and law graduate.

Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka named one of the attackers as Abdirahim Abdullahi, saying he was "a university of Nairobi law graduate and described by a person who knows him well as a brilliant upcoming lawyer."

The spokesman said Abdullahi's father, a local official in the northeastern county of Mandera, had "reported to the authorities that his son had gone missing and suspected the boy had gone to Somalia".

Describing Abdullahi as a high-flying A-grade student, Njoka said it was "critical that parents whose children go missing or show tendencies of having been exposed to violent extremism report to authorities."

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab militants claimed responsibility for Thursday's massacre at Garissa University, during which non-Muslim students were lined up and executed.

The massacre, which was the deadliest attack on Kenyan soil since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, claimed the lives of 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers.

Although losing ground in Somalia, the Shebab have stepped up attacks inside Kenya as well as its recruitment of Muslim youth in the country's northeastern and coastal regions.

As dawn broke Thursday, some students at Garissa University in northeast Kenya were already at early morning prayers, while others remained fast asleep in their dormitories.

Then, all hell broke loose. Gunmen stormed the campus, executing students as they prayed, pleaded for their lives, or hid in closets and under beds. At least 147 people were killed in the 13-hour assault, before the four attackers blew themselves up as security forces closed in.

The Somali Islamist group al Shabab took responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the African nation since al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998.

The group is a breakaway faction from the Islamic Courts Union, which briefly ruled Somalia in 2006 before it was ousted by U.S.-backed African forces. Al Shabab pledged allegiance to al Qaeda in 2012.

While al Shabab is based in neighboring Somalia, it has increasingly exported its campaign of violence into Kenya.

Students evacuated from Garissa University gather on April 3 before being transported to their home regions. (Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images

More than 600 people have been killed in al Shabab attacks in Kenya since 2012, including the 2013 assault on Nairobi’s Westgate mall, the New York Timesreports.

The group's operations in Kenya increased after Nairobi sent troops to help oust al Shabab from several of its strongholds in Somalia in 2011.

Under pressure in Somalia, the militants have stepped up recruitment of disaffected and impoverished youth in Kenya itself. One analyst told the BBC that around one-quarter of al-Shabab fighters are Kenyan. The man whom Kenyan authorities suspect of masterminding Thursday's attack, Muhammad Kuno, is a Kenyan of Somali heritage and a former headmaster of a school in Garissa.

An al-Shabab spokesman said the group attacked Garissa University because “the Christian government of Kenya has invaded our country.”

Such sectarian rhetoric is a dangerous ploy to exploit religious tensions in Kenya. The nation’s Muslim minority, around 10 percent of the population, bears the brunt of discrimination and police brutality, according to human rights groups. Al-Shabab militants target Kenyan Muslims with propaganda that compares their suffering with the problems in Somalia, Foreign Affairs explains.

Echoing earlier attacks, the militants who attacked Garissa University singled out Christians for execution, sparing some Muslim students.

On Friday, Kenyan Muslims gathered in Garissa holding signs reading: “We are all Kenyans. No to terrorism.”

Kenyan Muslims demonstrate against the attack and in solidarity with those Christians targeted in the attack, on a street in Garissa, Kenya, on April 3. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Despite its setbacks in Somalia, the group is still able to wreak havoc in the heart of the Somali capital. Just last week, the militant group besieged a Mogadishu hotelfor 12 hours, killing 17 people, including Somalia's ambassador to Switzerland.