Chad sent ground troops into Nigeria for the first time yesterday to fight Boko Haram in a clear sign of increased regional pressure on the Islamist rebels.
For almost an hour Chadian warplanes struck Boko Haram positions, then armoured vehicles rolled across the bridge linking Fotokol town in Cameroon with Gamboru in Nigeria, clearing the way for the infantry.
The move followed the African Union's backing last week of a new five-nation, 7500-strong force to take on Boko Haram because of its threat to regional security.
In the last six weeks Boko Haram has seized dozens of towns and villages in the northeast of Nigeria and stepped up attacks in neighbouring nations. The upsurge in violence has been attributed to its aim of disrupting Nigeria's elections on February 14.
Chad's military has conducted days of air strikes against the armed extremists, while waiting for authorisation to operate on the ground in Nigeria via Cameroon.
The entire Chadian contingent of about 2000 troops had crossed the frontier by midday yesterday without a shot being fired, an AFP correspondent in Fotokol said.
Chadian forces were also deployed near two villages in Niger, just across the border with Nigeria.
"A contingent of about 400 vehicles and tanks is stationed between Mamori and Bosso," local private radio Anfani said.
Chadian soldiers have also been deployed at Daboa in the Lake Chad area where the borders of Nigeria, Chad and Niger converge.
Chad President Idriss Deby sent soldiers to Cameroon in mid-January to help fight increasing incursions in that country's far northeast.
N'Djamena was already part of a long-standing regional force with Niger and Nigeria in the Lake Chad area, whose mandate was extended to counter-insurgency operations. But that force had been assumed to be moribund after Boko Haram overran the multinational base in Baga, northern Borno, on January 3, in an attack in which hundreds of civilians are believed to have died.
Nigerian authorities said on Monday that Gamboru, on the eastern fringe of Borno state, had been reclaimed after three days of air strikes by Chadian warplanes.
A Chadian army officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said Boko Haram fighters were "in the whole town, hiding in the houses, and they have posted snipers everywhere".
On Monday, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan escaped a suspected suicide bomb attack in Gombe in the northeast.
Source- Times
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