Boko Haram flag
11 Chadian soldiers have been killed in the most recent Boko Haram attack in the country, while 13 others have been reportedly wounded. This constitutes the most recent offensive in a number of attacks carried out by the Salafist group against Chadian army strongholds.
“Boko Haram members attacked our positions at 4:30 am in Kaiga Ngouboua about two kilometers from the Nigerian border,” the Chadian Army said in an official statement.
Seventeen Boko Haram members have also been reportedly killed during a counter-attack which quickly followed their original offensive on Chad’s military personnel. The group has been engaging in battles with the army at the Nigerian border since the beginning of the year. According to worrying reports, the Wahhabi terror network has been increasingly expanding their operations well into Chadian territory, constantly challenging the army and planning offensive actions against soldiers.
The capital city of N’Djamena is located less than 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) from Boko Haram’s occupied territorial stronghold in northeastern Nigeria. Insurgents have released several threats against Chad’s government, promising subsequent attacks in the nearby future.
Despite this, Chadian President Idriss Deby has said that Boko Haram can be defeated and pushed out of the country’s territory by the end of the year. The nation is already a leading actor in the fight against the Wahhabi terror network and other Takfiri rebel groups operating in sub-Saharan Africa.
Chad has joined a regional military alliance with Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria to fight the extremist group in all its areas of operation. Boko Haram has waged a bloody insurgency in all these territories, resulting in the deaths of over 17,000 and the mass exodus of 2,5 million civilians, as it has continued to advance into several cities and expand its territorial control. Earlier this year, in May, Boko Haram pledged loyalty to the so-called Islamic State, whose presence on the African continent was confined to Libya at the time, through small, affiliated terror cells.
The Islamist group gained worldwide notoriety in April 2014 for kidnapping 219 schoolgirls from the Nigerian village of Chibok. This sparked outrage across social media, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls trending across all online platforms. Despite innumerable demands for their release and subsequent attempts from the Nigerian government to rescue them, the missing girls have never been heard from since.
Authorities in Nigeria have continuously reaffirmed their commitment to combat Boko Haram and neighboring countries are also strengthening their military force, as the group’s black Islamist flag waves ominously just across the border.
Photo Credits: Wikimedia
