Nigerian officials believe that they have located the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped last month by an Islamist militant group but are hesitant to implement a forceful rescue due to worries that doing so may endanger them, CNN reports.Â
"We want our girls back. I can tell you that our military can and will do it, but where they are held, can we go there with force?" said Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, according to News Agency of Nigeria, a state-run news service. "Nobody should say Nigerian military does not know what it is doing; we can't kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back."
Badeh continued, "The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are; but we cannot tell you.
"We cannot come and tell you the military secret, just leave us alone, we are working to get the girls back," Badeh reportedly said.
Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby told CNN that U.S. officials "were not able to confirm the report."
Last month, the Islamist terror group Boko Haram stormed a northern Nigerian village and kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from a boarding school in Chibok. Since the abduction, Boko Haram has released videos claiming that the girls would be converted to Islam and sold into marriage.
Read more at CNN.