Captain Jeff Davis during the briefing in Washington DC 26 July 2017Boko Haram remains a “concern” to the American government and U.S. troops deployed to Cameroon in 2015 to help counter the terror group in West Africa remain there for that purpose, a spokesman said on Wednesday, a day after nine Nigerian soldiers were gunned down in the country’s northeast and the same day two Cameroonian gendarmes were killed by Boko Haram.
Cameroonian Soldier pays final respects to comrade killed by Boko Haram in Sagme on Wednesday morning. Photo: L’Oeil du Sahel
Captain Jeff Davis, Director, Defense Press Operations, who addressed foreign media on the U.S. Department of Defense-related issues, said 300 American troops deployed to Cameroon continue to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations.
The terror group has killed tens of thousands of people in Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger and displaced millions. Thousands have also been kidnapped, including the Chibok girls who were abducted in their school 2014. While many of the girls have been rescued or freed, at least hundred remain missing till date.
Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015 only for ISIS to announce a new leader in 2016. However, even with a fractured group, Boko Haram killed thousands of people last year, the U.S. State Department said in a report last week.
On Wednesday, Boko Haram killed two gendarmes (military police) in Cameroon during a gunfight.
L’Oeil du Sahel, a Cameroonian newspaper, said the confrontations took place in the locality of Sagme in the country’s far north.
On Tuesday, Boko Haram terrorists ambushed Nigerian oil workers and killed nine soldiers, including an officer, the army said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that a civilian was also among the dead.
The deadly ambush took place at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon at Barno Yasu, Magumeri Local Government Area of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, said Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman, the Director of the Nigerian Army Public Relations.
Globally, Captain Davis indicated that the attention of the U.S. Government was on defeating ISIS in the Middle East. He said the terror group has lost about 70 percent of the territories that it was occupying at its peak.