47 killed in clashes between Chadian forces, Boko Haram terrorists
According to Chadian army spokesman Colonel Azem Bermendoa Agouna, the fighting broke out in the early hours of Friday, when Boko Haram terrorists launched an attack against the Chadian army’s position in Kaiga on Lake Chad but “were pushed back” by fierce response from the government troops.
Chad is a member of a multinational task force battling Boko Haram across its border with Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon. The force has been created with the aim of preventing a spillover of the Nigeria-based militancy to those countries.
Boko Haram terrorists started their reign of terror in 2009 with the aim of toppling the Nigerian government. In their heyday in early 2015, they managed to control an area in the country’s northeast as vast as Belgium but lost most of that territory over the past year as the multinational task force launched a campaign to eradicate the militant group.
On December 24, 2016, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 with a pledge to eradicate Boko Haram, announced that the army had “crushed” the terror group a day earlier by retaking its last key bastion, deep inside the thick Sambisa Forest in Borno.
