Cameroonian Soldiers Shell Boko Haram Camp Inside Nigeria

Cameroonian soldiers have launched further attacks against Boko Haram
insurgents, shelling one of the sect's camps inside Nigeria.

The Cameroonian soldiers launched the attack across the Nigerian
border and killed many of the insurgents, a security official stated
on Thursday.

The Agence France-Pressequoted the source to have said that the
Cameroonian troops shelled the camp on Wednesday evening, two days
after the Islamist group had seized control of Gamboru Ngala, a town
located at the border with Cameroon.

"It was tanks stationed on the frontier at Fotokol (on Cameroon's side
of the border) that shelled the camp on the other side.

"Seen from Fotokol this morning, Gamboru looks empty and smells of
death. Nobody knows how many Boko Haram members were killed, but it is
obvious that many were," the French news agency quoted the anonymous
source as saying.

The shelling was confirmed by a local police officer.

"These were abandoned houses that they have occupied since they
entered Gamboru. We think they still control the town because there
are many of them and they didn't all gather in the same place," he
said.

Calmness had been restored to Fotokol by Wednesday, following days of
panic as residents and Nigerian security forces fled from the Boko
Haram attack on Gamboru.

Boko Haram has faced minimal resistance from the military as it has
stepped up attacks across North-East Nigeria, where it wants to create
a hard-line Islamic state.

After clashes in Gamboru Ngala, Nigeria's army had dismissed reports
that the soldiers had fled but that they had been "charging through
the borders in a tactical manoeuvre" and found themselves on
Cameroonian soil.

The Boko Haram fighters crossed the border into Cameroon earlier this
week, after attacking a military base and police station in Nigeria
and apparently sending some 480 Nigerian troops retreating across the
frontier.

Between Monday and Tuesday, Cameroonian troops killed 27 Boko Haram
elements during an attack in an area near Fotokol in the far north.

A Cameroonian soldier in the region said the insurgents had been
pushed back into Nigeria, with calm returning to the area on
Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Boko Haram, which is seeking to carve out a de facto
Islamic state in the north, has stepped up attacks in Cameroon,
leading the country to increase deployments along its jungle border.