Boko bashers from SA

With their roots in South Africa's apartheid-era security forces, they do not fit the image of an army of liberation.

But, after three months on the ground, a squad of grizzled, ageing mercenaries has helped end Boko Haram's six-year reign of terror in northern Nigeria.

Run by Colonel Eeben Barlow, a former commander in the SA Defence Force, the bush warfare experts were recruited in secrecy in January to train an elite strike group in Nigeria's demoralised army.

Some cut their teeth in South Africa's border wars 30 years ago. But their fighting skills, backed by their own helicopter pilots flying combat missions, have proved decisive in helping the Nigerians turn around their campaign against Boko Haram.

The Islamists have fled many of the towns they once controlled, leading to the freeing of hundreds of girls and women they used as slaves and "bush wives".

The role of Barlow's firm in tackling one of the most vicious insurgencies of modern times has been kept quiet by Nigeria's outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, who lost elections six weeks ago to former general Muhammadu Buhari.

But last week, Barlow, 62, discussed its role at a seminar at the Royal Danish Defence College, and in an interview with Sofrep.com, a special forces website, he described the "aggressive" strike force he created.

"The campaign gathered good momentum and wrested much of the initiative from the enemy," said Barlow.

"It was not uncommon for the strike force to be met by cheering locals once the enemy had been driven from an area."

During the apartheid era Barlow defended the South African regime against insurrection and fought border wars in Angola and what is now Namibia. In 1989 he co-founded Executive Outcomes, a company made up of many former members of South Africa's security forces.

One of the first modern "private armies", in 1995 it helped Sierra Leone's government fight the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front, notorious for chopping off the arms of enemies.

Another co-founder of Executive Outcomes, which was dissolved in 2000, was Simon Mann, the Old Etonian later jailed in Equatorial Guinea for a coup plot there.

Barlow's new company is Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection. It is thought to have sent about 100 men to Nigeria, including black troopers. Some of the blacks had served in elite South African units, others had fought against the SADF.

Barlow said the intention had been to train a team to free the schoolgirls. But as Boko Haram continued to massacre villagers the emphasis switched to schooling Nigeria's largely traditional army in "unconventional mobile warfare".

The key was "relentless pursuit", which involved mimicking Boko Haram's hit-and-run tactics with non-stop assaults.

Though Nigeria has insisted that Barlows men were "technical advise rs", he suggested that they were involved in direct combat.

What is unclear is whether Barlow and his men arebreaking the law by taking part in a foreign war.