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Sending United Nations peacekeepers to Burundi if violence worsens would be a "last resort" because the world body was not equipped to deal with an intense ethnic conflict, said a U.N. memo seen by Reuters on Wednesday. In the memo to the U.N. Security Council, peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said the U.N. was limited in its ability to combat significant violence in the event no countries stepped up to protect civilians and there was no political process underway.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter laid out broad plans Wednesday to defeat Islamic State militants and retake the group's key power centers in Iraq and Syria. And he announced that a special commando force has now arrived in Iraq.

Buhari has hung his presidency on overcoming two apparently intractable threats to his nation: Boko Haram and the epic corruption that saps the foundations of Nigerian government and society. Yet he has failed to make the connection between the two. Doing so would buttress both efforts, and given their arguably slim chances of success, he can hardly afford to pass up the mutual reinforcement.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter signaled Wednesday that the U.S. military will expand efforts to target Islamic State militants beyond the group's territory in Iraq and Syria, potentially involving airstrikes and raids in other Islamic countries.