Nigeria troops cross into north Cameroon after Boko Haram attacks base

YAOUNDE (Reuters) – Around 480 Nigerian soldiers crossed into Cameroon after Boko Haram militants operating along the border between the two nations attacked a military base and police station, authorities in Cameroon said on Tuesday.

The apparent retreat across the border may suggest Boko Haram is having some success at chasing Nigerian forces out of towns they are defending along the hilly frontier with Cameroon.

The soldiers crossed to the Cameroon town of Fotokol in the Far-North region after fighting broke out when the Islamist militants attacked a base and police station in Gamboru in neighbouring northeastern Nigeria, Cameroon Ministry of Defence spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Didier Badjeck said.

The Nigerian military said some troops had crossed the border in a “technical manoeuvre” after sustained fighting with Boko Haram in the town, but it did not say how many.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a videotape released on Sunday that his fighters now ruled the captured northeastern town of Gwoza, also next to Cameroon, “by Islamic law”, a sign the militants may now be fighting to secure territory instead of just to destabilise the northeast.[ID:nL5N0QV21P]

“The unarmed Nigerian soldiers have been accommodated in a school in Maroua and negotiations are currently going on so that they can return to their country,” Badjeck told Reuters.

Boko Haram has killed hundreds of people this year, mostly in northeastern Nigeria, and it has staged bombings across the country. The group, which rejects Western-style education and seeks to carve out a de facto Islamic state in northern Nigeria, shocked the international community in April when it abducted 200 Nigerian schoolgirls.

In recent weeks it has stepped up cross-border attacks into Cameroon, leading Cameroon to increase its deployment of troops to its northern region, joining international efforts to combat the militants.