 Story highlights A Pentagon official says a Predator drone is joining the search 
 
 U.S. sending 80 members of its armed forces to Chad to help in search for the girls 
 
 Pentagon spokesman: "These are not combat troops" 
 
 Troops are going to Chad because it's "a great location" geographically, he says 
 
 The United States deployed 80 members of its armed forces to Chad to help in the search for the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, the White House said Wednesday. “These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area,” the White House said in a statement formally notifying Congress of the deployment. The unit will remain in Chad “until its support resolving the kidnapping is no longer required.” 
 
 This month, the Pentagon dispatched a team of eight experts to the Nigerian capital to help search for the more than 200 schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group that holds sway over remote areas in northern Nigeria. Officials have speculated that the militants may have transported them to neighboring Chad or Cameroon, but it's not clear where the girls are or whether they've left Nigeria. On Tuesday, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, called the search for the missing girls tantamount to finding “a needle in a jungle.” 
 
 “We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it’s dense forest jungle,” he told reporters. U.S. officials have said the kidnappers may have broken up the hostages into smaller groups and dispersed into a wider area. U.S. military officials have emphasized the difficult nature of the mission. As the United States steps up intelligence-gathering efforts there, Lubeck said, there’s the possibility that Nigerian forces could mishandle it.
– The US is putting some muscle behind its promise to help find the kidnapped girls of Nigeria. The White House told Congress today that it has sent 80 troops to neighboring Chad to help track down the girls and their Boko Haram captors, reports the Washington Post. The statement didn't spell out specifics except to say that "these personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area." The White House letter adds that they will remain there until no longer needed. And that could be a while, as a Pentagon spokesman made clear yesterday. “We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it’s dense forest jungle," he said of the search. Also today, Nigeria asked the UN to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, a move that would give nations the power to freeze the group's assets and impose embargoes, reports CNN. Nigeria blames the group for yesterday's car bombings that killed more than 100.