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Boko Haram fighters

KANO (Nigeria) — Boko Haram yesterday attempted to blow up a bridge on the Nigerian border with Cameroon after overrunning a town and sending residents and soldiers fleeing, police and locals said. A Cameroon police officer stationed in the far north town of Fotokol told AFP that the militants 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, locals said.

Three children were reportedly injured by flying shrapnel when explosives were detonated, possibly by firing from the Cameroon side of the border, they added.

Nigeria’s military in Abuja on Monday denied reports that more than 450 soldiers had crossed into Cameroon, claiming that it was a “tactical manoeuvre” as they pursued the militants.

The authorities in Cameroon said the troops fought a rear-guard battle in Gamboru Ngala before withdrawing as they were out-numbered. 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. — AFP.