Cameroon Army kills 86 Boko Haram militants.

Cameroon’s army says it has killed 86 Boko
Haram militants and detained 1,000 people
suspected of links to the Islamist group, as
central African leaders held talks on how to
combat its bloody insurgency.
Five Cameroonian soldiers were also killed
during the clashes in the Waza region near
the border with Nigeria, defence ministry
spokesman Didier Badjeck said Monday.
Nigeria-based Boko Haram has widened its
attacks into neighbouring nations, notably
Cameroon and Chad, in a conflict estimated
to have claimed a total 13,000 lives since
2009.
Representatives of 10 nations, meeting in the
Cameroonian capital Yaounde on Monday
under the aegis of the Economic Community
of Central African States (ECCAS), urged the
international community to provide more
support in the fightback against the Islamists.
“We have to eradicate Boko Haram,” said
Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, as
attendees pledged to create a 76-million-euro
($86-million) fund to fight the group.
Biya declared that Boko Haram’s utter
disregard for human dignity meant “a total
impossibility of compromise”, but added that
the fight against terrorism was not a “crusade
against Islam”.
Nigeria, where elections have been
postponed by six weeks until late March
because of Boko Haram activity in swathes of
the northeast, was absent from the talks as it
is not an ECCAS member.
The aim of Monday’s discussion was to come
up with “an agreed solution” on the fight
against the extremists, a source close to the
Cameroonian government told AFP.
Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria have
formed a military alliance to combat the
notoriously brutal militants, who are fighting to
create a hardline Islamic state.
A Cameroonian army official announced that
more than 1,000 people suspected of being
affiliated with Boko Haram were being held in
the town of Maroua, in the country’s Far
North region, where more than 2,000
Cameroonian soldiers have been deployed
since August last year.
“At the moment, the prison of Maroua is
holding more than 1,000 Boko Haram
(suspects),” said Colonel Joseph Nouma,
commander of a local operation to combat
the Islamist militants.
The detentions came as police in Niger said
they had arrested more than 160 people
suspected of having links to Boko Haram in
the country’s Diffa region, a border area with
Nigeria which was attacked by the Islamist
group this month.