Islamic militants kill 12 Cameroonian soldiers in an attack near Lake Chad
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — At least 12 Cameroonian soldiers were killed Monday night in an attack by Islamic militants on the border with Nigeria, according to a statement from the Cameroonian Ministry of Defense.
The attack also left over a dozen soldiers wounded and occurred in the Lake Chad area near the town of Wulgo, the ministry said Thursday.
While no group was initially blamed for the attack, officials later said it was suspected to have been carried out by extremists from the Boko Haram group or its breakaway faction that is loyal to the Islamic State group.
Pointing to Boko Haram militants, the ministry cited the “advanced weaponry they increasingly have at their disposal” and the “apparent alliance with powerful transnational criminal entities” as contributing factors to Monday’s attack.
Matan Daniel, a researcher at the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre, an Israel-based research group that tracks IS and al-Qaeda, sees the attack as part of a significant issue that has plagued the region: lack of communication between the four countries that surround Lake Chad.
The Multinational Joint Task Force, or MNJTF, was established to counter militant organizations that have traditionally used cross-border raids to avoid pursuit by the military. Under the MNJTF, local armed forces could cross the border to pursue suspected militants and countries were supposed to share more intelligence.
Recently, however, problems have started to arise. In November, Chad threatened to withdraw from the MNJTF after it suffered a catastrophic attack that killed 17 soldiers. Niger withdrew from the task force last year after a coup rocked the country.
“It is plausible that the recent cracks in the ranks of the MNJTF force and the withdrawal of countries from it contributed to the outcome of this attack. The cooperation of different forces within the MNJTF is critical for its activities. For example, the attack has reportedly lasted for several hours. A quick response from nearby forces, Cameroonian or Nigerian, would have probably resulted in fewer casualties or even different outcomes,” Daniel told The Associated Press.
Boko Haram, initially based in Nigeria, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose its radical version of Islamic law. The conflict, now Africa’s longest struggle with militancy, has spilled into Nigeria’s neighbors, Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
While in recent months the number of attacks has decreased, David Otto, training adviser at the International Academy for the Fight Against Terrorism, in Ivory Coast, cautions that technological advances have made those attacks formidable.
“Jihadist groups linked to Boko Haram still have the capability to launch surprise sophisticated attacks using modern technology like drones, signifying the asymmetric nature of the warfare and indicating that these groups adapt to their environment and continually evolve in their technical capabilities,” Otto said when contacted via telephone.
Some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced in northeastern Nigeria alone, according to the U.N. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in the village of Chibok in Borno state — the epicenter of the conflict — captured the attention of the world.
Over a decade later, large swaths of the region are still plagued by regular violence. In January, at least 40 people in Nigeria were killed in an attack by Boko Haram.
By NALOVA AKUA and WILSON McMAKIN
Associated Press
