Cameroon is part
of an 8,700-strong regional task force also comprising troops from Chad,
Niger, Nigeria and Benin that aims to destroy Boko Haram, which though
based mainly in Nigeria has become a major threat to wider regional
security.
Cameroon's army, backed up by a regional task force,
has killed at least 100 members of the militant Islamist Boko Haram
group and freed 900 people it had held hostage, the west African
country's army and defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Army spokesman
Colonel Didier Badjeck said troops had conducted a sweep operation
between November 26-28 along Cameroon's long border with its western
neighbour Nigeria.
Both Badjeck and the defence ministry, which gave a brief statement
on state television, cited the same figures of militant deaths and the
number of people freed.
Other military sources in Cameroon confirmed that a military
operation had taken place, although one expressed surprise at its scale.
It was not immediately clear where the clashes with the
militants had taken place or where Boko Haram's captives had been held.
It was also not known whether those freed included any of the more than
200 schoolgirls seized by the militants in their dormitories in Chibok,
Nigeria last year.
Cameroon has
suffered regular cross-border attacks in its Far North Region in recent
weeks, including twin suicide blasts overnight that killed at least
three people.
Suicide bombings, often carried out by young women recruited by the
militant group in Nigeria, are becoming almost daily occurrences in the
Far North region.
(Reporting by Anne Mireille Nzouankeu; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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