Boko Haram militants yesterday attempted to blow up a bridge on
the border with Cameroon after overrunning a town and sending residents and
soldiers fleeing, three children were injured, police and residents said.A
Cameroon police officer stationed in the far north town of Fotokol told AFP
that the terrorists tried to destroy the bridge, which serves as the border
crossing with Gamboru Ngala in Nigeria. Boko Haram stormed Gamboru Ngala early
on Monday and by evening, had taken over the police station, a military
barracks and vocational training centre, where they had based themselves, the
residents said. Flying shrapnel from the Cameroon side of the border detonated
explosives, possibly injured the three children, they added. Meanwhile,
soldiers, who fled into neighbouring Cameroon during a clash with a large
number of Boko Haram militants on Monday, handed over their weapons to
Cameroonian authorities and to Nigeria yesterday, the Defence Headquarters said.
They spent the evening at a Fotokol Customs post. Boko Haram has in recent
weeks switched tactics from hit-and-run attacks to attempting to seize and hold
territory and have proclaimed one captured town, Gwoza, as part of an “Islamic
caliphate. Assessing how much territory the militants now hold is impossible,
but residents have said the Islamists now control at least one town in Yobe
State, Buni Yadi as well as Gwoza and Gamboru Ngala in neighbouring Borno
State.
Sun Newspaper
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