When The Rain Is Over: Long-Awaited Regional Troops Set To Bombard Boko Haram Camps
A bigwig of the United Nation has announced that the long-awaited
regional task force is set to begin raids on Boko Haram’s enclaves when
the rainy season ends soon.
READ ALSO: Nigerian Army Publishes Images Of 100 Most Wanted Boko Haram Fighters
According to
Reuters, the UN Special Representative for West Africa, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, was quoted on Wednesday as saying:
“They will take advantage of the end of the rainy season now to really go after them.”
“The rains in northeast Nigeria typically end in September but have lasted longer this year.
The
8,700-strong joint force, headquartered in Chad’s capital N’Djamena
with troops from Chad, Niger, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, was supposed
to be fully functional in July.
But plans were not finalised until late August, and some observers have bemoaned a lack of progress since.
The
African Union and the Lake Chad Basin Commission signed a memorandum of
understanding in October giving final implementation guidelines and the
United States has sent troops to provide intelligence and other
assistance.
The expected joint raids will have to adapt to the
changing nature of the enemy, which once attacked with hundreds of
fighters aboard scores of vehicles but has been reduced to isolated
bands,” Chambas said.
It would be recalled, Nigerian
and Chadian forces early this year forced the militant group, which has
sworn allegiance to Islamic State, to cede large swathes of territory in
northern Nigeria, undermining its six-year campaign to carve out a
caliphate.
READ ALSO: Britain On The Brink Of Deporting 29,000 Nigerians, Read Why
But
some fighters have since regrouped and ramped up suicide attacks and
guerrilla raids in the remote border areas around Lake Chad where Chad,
Niger, Cameroon and Nigeria meet
.
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