Security experts believe that terrorism hardly thrives in isolation. There are always gang or group members strictly sticking to division of labour as portrayed by this report. Cameroon’s military has arrested some Boko Haram fighters and their 25 female accomplices who were attempting to supply food and weapons to the fighters in Nigeria. Most of the women say their husbands are based in Nigeria.
The commander of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, the Cameroon military unit fighting the Boko Haram insurgents in the border town of Kolofata, Alban Toupo, said 31 people, including 25 women, were nabbed while transporting ammunition, food, materials to fabricate explosive devices, torches, drugs and medications to Nigeria in small quantities.
The commander said the suspects used to involve their children in the smuggling, claiming that they were either going to visit relatives across the border in Nigeria or were simply going to sell food and buy basic commodities.
A senior Cameroon government official in Kolofata, Tchombai Ibrahi, says the suspects have been helping the military in their investigations. He said his men have embarked on a tour to enlighten the population not to collaborate with the strangers who pretend to be farmers and business persons but end up terrorizing villagers.
The multi-national joint task force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, made up of troops from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger, recovered large areas of land from Boko Haram militants. They declared that the terrorist group had been virtually defeated last year, but the insurgents switched to terror attacks and have remained a threat since then.
