N'DJAMENA - Three soldiers and 123 Boko Haram militants were killed when the Islamist group attacked a Chadian army contingent in northern Cameroon, the Chadian military said Friday.
Twelve soldiers were wounded in the attacks staged by the Islamists on Thursday and Friday near the border town of Fotokol, according to a military statement read out on national television. Chad sent a convoy of troops and military vehicles into neighbouring Cameroon on January 17 to deal with the growing threat Boko Haram poses in the region. ‘The enemy was repelled by our defensive forces,’ the general staff's statement said, adding that the troops had ‘routed’ the Islamists in the second attack.
The soldiers were killed by improvised explosive devices, the statement said. A senior Cameroonian security source said the Chadian troops were deployed to the town, which sits opposite a Nigerian town under Boko Haram control and is also close to the border with Chad, on Wednesday. Boko Haram frequently stages attacks on Fotokol from their base in the Nigerian town of Gamboru, which is just 500 metres (yards) away.
Chad has called on countries in the region to form a broad coalition in the fight against the Islamist group. The country has already deployed its army along its borders as well as sending the additional contingent to Cameroon. Chad's president Idriss Deby has also expressed intentions of taking back the strategic Nigerian town of Baga from Boko Haram, situated on Lake Chad. The African Union called on Friday for a regional five-nation force of 7,500 troops to defeat the ‘horrendous’ rise of Boko Haram.
‘Terrorism, in particular the brutality of Boko Haram against our people, (is) a threat to our collective safety, security and development. This has now spread to the region beyond Nigeria and requires a collective, effective and decisive response,’ AU commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a speech opening the summit. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told African leaders that Boko Haram was ‘a clear danger to national, regional and international peace and security’.
The group's uprising has become a regional crisis, with the four directly affected countries - Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria - agreeing along with Benin to boost cooperation to contain the threat and to form a Multinational Joint Task Force. More than 13,000 people have been killed and more than one million made homeless by Boko Haram violence since 2009. Moreover, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday gave his backing to an African Union proposal to set up a regional five-nation force of 7,500 troops to fight Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist militants. Support for the initiative, announced at an African Union summit being held in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, came hours after the Chadian military said three soldiers and 123 militants were killed.
The casualties occurred in two days of fighting with a Chadian army contingent in northern Cameroon. ‘I welcome the decision of the AU and regional countries to establish an MJTF (Multinational Joint Task Force) against Boko Haram,’ Ban told reporters on the sidelines of the summit. ‘They have committed unspeakable brutality. Those terrorists should be addressed with a regional and international cooperation. Not a single country, even the regional countries, can handle this alone,’ he said. ‘The United Nations is ready to fully cooperate with the African Union.’
Ban nevertheless said that ‘military means may not be the only solution.’ ‘There should be very careful analysis of the root causes why this kind of terrorism, and extremism, violent extremism, are spreading,’ he told reporters. At least 13,000 people have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes by the Boko Haram conflict since 2009. The group also carried out the mass abduction of 276 girls from the town of Chibok in April last year.The uprising has become a regional crisis, with the four directly affected countries - Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria - agreeing along with Benin late last year to form a joint force of 3,000 troops, although the force remains inoperational due to disagreements between Abuja and its neighbours. Officials at the AU summit said military experts will discuss the force on February 5-7 in Cameroon's capital Yaounde. The pan-African bloc would then seek UN Security Council approval in the form of a Chapter 7 resolution authorising the use of force, plus a ‘Trust Fund’ to pay for it.
Diplomats said that while ‘logistical support’ would be forthcoming, financing remained the key obstacle to collective action. ‘One challenge of course is to finance this force. The best for us will be within the contributions of the UN, but we haven't explored all the possibilities,’ said Ismael Chergui, commissioner at the AU's Peace and Security Council. The AU summit also saw African leaders name Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to the 54-member bloc's one-year rotating chair, replacing Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
Mugabe, a former liberation war hero who at age 90 is Africa's oldest president and its third-longest serving leader, is viewed with deep respect by many on the continent. But he is also subject to travel bans from both the United States and European Union in protest at political violence and intimidation of opponents in his country. Questioned by reporters on the potential for diplomatic fallout over Mugabe, Ban said the AU ‘have their own procedures and practices for electing their leadership’. ‘I respect the will and decision of the African Union. I am ready to cooperate closely with the African Union leadership,’ he added.
On Friday, however, Ban told African leaders they cannot afford to ignore the wishes of their citizens and condemned ‘leaders who refuse to leave office when their terms end’ - saying that ‘undemocratic constitutional changes and legal loopholes should never be used to cling to power.’ Countries including Benin, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and Rwanda are all said to be considering changes to allow their leaders a third term. The summit also includes closed-door talks on a string of crises, including Somalia, Mali, Libya, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. Talks on South Sudan, brokered by the east African regional bloc IGAD, are also scheduled to resume in Addis Ababa on Saturday.