NIGERIA'S war against Boko Haram is going from bad to worse. The country's army, on paper the strongest in west Africa, suffered its latest humiliation in late August when some 480 soldiers fled across the border to Cameroon after coming under attack from the jihadists.
Cameroon's ministry of defence said the Nigerian troops crossed the frontier after militants attacked a military base and police station in Gamboru Ngala, in northern Nigeria. The deserting forces apparently holed up in Maroua, some 80km (50 miles) inside Cameroon, where they were disarmed by local troops. Nigeria's government insists this was but a "tactical manoeuvre".
It was the latest of many setbacks in the struggle to contain Boko Haram (its name means "Western education is forbidden"), which recently proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria's north-east, mimicking the one set up by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The security situation in the north has continued to deteriorate. Thousands of people have been killed this year. The government has failed to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April.
A large part of the problem...Continue reading
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