Twenty-four of the 80 people taken hostage by Boko Haram in the north of Cameroon Sunday were released as Cameroonian armed forces pursued the Islamist extremists, according to a government source.
The Boko Haram fighters then fled back into Nigeria, with the fate of the rest of the hostages taken in the raid still unknown.
An
army officer based in Cameroon's Far North region said Boko Haram had
attacked two villages and kidnapped what Cameroonian state media said
were 80 hostages, in one of the group's biggest abductions outside
Nigeria yet.
As the militants retreated, the
Chadian army said it was putting 400 military vehicles, attack
helicopters, and a still unspecified number of soldiers amassed in
northern Cameroon into action against Boko Haram, as part of a regional
effort to defeat the notoriously violent group.
"We are going to advance
(Monday) towards the enemy," Chadian army colonel Djerou Ibrahim, who is
leading the offensive against Boko Haram, told AFP from the strategic
crossroads town of Maltam in northern Cameroon.
"Our mission is to hunt down Boko Haram, and we have all the means to do that."
But
Cameroonian Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary warned the
armies of the two nations still had considerable planning to complete
before being able to launch offensives against Boko Haram.
"Military planners must evaluate the forces being coordinated and coalesced," he said. "That takes time."
Chadian
President Idriss Deby has clearly stated his determination to
re-capture the strategic town of Baga in northeastern Nigeria, which
Boko Haram stormed in murderous attacks in early January.
Chad has thus far been spared
attack by Boko Haram, but only a thin sliver of land in northern
Cameroon separates the desert state from the Islamists' stronghold in
Nigeria's Borno state.
Chad
has also been affected by the refugee crisis sparked by Boko Haram's
insurgency, and Deby has warned he will "not stand idly by" as the
extremists enlarge their field of activity.
Nigeria,
which has been unable to halt Boko Haram on its own, expressed its
conditional support of Chadian soldiers eventually being deployed on its
soil.
"All backing of our
operations will be welcomed, but that must conform to operations we
already have under way, given those are on Nigerian territory," said
Nigerian army spokesman Chris Olukolade.
The
leaders of Ghana and Germany, who met in Berlin on Monday, supported
using EU money to help fund a regional African force to battle the
Islamists.
"I believe it is
right to choose African troops for this task but it is our common
interest that we sustainably finance such a force," Chancellor Angela
Merkel told reporters.
Ghanian
President John Dramani Mahama said "it would be very important if our
partners could join in terms of how we finance that force".
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