Boko Haram on Tuesday attempted to blow up a bridge on the Nigerian border with Cameroon after overrunning a town and sending residents and soldiers fleeing, police and locals said.
A Cameroon police officer stationed in the far north town of Fotokol told AFP that the militants tried to destroy the bridge, which serves as the border crossing with Gamboru Ngala in Nigeria.
Boko Haram stormed Gamboru Ngala early on Monday and by evening had taken over the police station, a military barracks and vocational training centre, where they had based themselves, locals said.
Three children were reportedly injured by flying shrapnel when explosives were detonated, possibly by firing from the Cameroon side of the border, they added.
Nigeria’s military in Abuja on Monday denied reports that more than 450 soldiers had crossed into Cameroon, claiming that it was a “tactical manoeuvre” as they pursued the militants.
The authorities in Cameroon said the troops fought a rear-guard battle in Gamboru Ngala before withdrawing as they were out-numbered. They spent the evening at a Fotokol customs post.
Boko Haram has in recent weeks switched tactics from hit-and-run attacks to attempting to seize and hold territory and have proclaimed one captured town, Gwoza, as part of an “Islamic caliphate”.
Assessing how much territory the militants now hold is impossible but residents have said the Islamists now control at least one town in Yobe state – Buni Yadi – as well as Gwoza and Gamboru Ngala in neighbouring Borno.
In Adamawa, which has also been under a state of emergency since May last year, a local government official said scores of gunmen stormed the town of Madagali on Saturday, forcing out soldiers and taking over government buildings.
Local government chair Maina Ularamu said the insurgents advanced from Gwoza, some 23km away, and took several villages in between.
Church burnt
“Boko Haram are now in control of Madagali and many villages in the area which have been deserted by residents for fear of attack by the insurgents,” he added.
Troops were chased out of the town of Gulak, the administrative headquarters for the region some 20km away from Madagali.
The Islamists arrived from Gwoza via Liman Kara, where they took over a police training college last week, Ularamu said.
“For now they are not killing residents but people are living in fear considering the carnage they carried out in Gwoza, despite giving assurances to residents they were not going to harm them,” he said.
On Monday, six people were killed in the village of Kafin Hausa while a church was burnt down in Sabon Garin Hyanbula on Sunday.
“People have been sneaking out from Madagali to avoid possible attack by the Boko Haram gunmen,” Ularamu said.
“The claim is empty,” Nigeria’s defence ministry said on Twitter. “The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state [are] still intact.”
The denial came after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau announced in a video message that the group declared a caliphate in Gwoza in Borno State.
Security agencies were in the process of “analysing the content of the said new video and compare with the facts on the ground in Gwoza”, Borno Governor Kashim Shettima said.
Boko Haram has been in control of Gwoza for several weeks. The military said its attempts to regain control of the town were “ongoing.”
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful”, has killed more than 3 000 people in Nigeria’s north this year alone.
When it first launched attacks in 2009, Boko Haram mainly targeted Christians under the pretext of wanting to establish an Islamic state, but since mid-2013, Boko Haram has focused its attacks on government security agents as well as on civilians of both Christian and Muslim faiths in their homes, markets, hospitals and schools.
Watch out for “Enemy within our boundaries; Nigeria a nation at war” By ‘jide Adesina
