The United States is sending 300 troops, along with surveillance drones, to Cameroon to bolster a West African effort to counter the Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram, US officials said on Wednesday.
In a notification to Congress, US President Barack Obama said an advance force of about 90 military personnel began deploying to Cameroon on Monday, with the consent of the Yaounde government.
The troops would “conduct airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations in the region”, Mr Obama said. “These forces are equipped with weapons for the purpose of providing their own force protection and security, and they will remain in Cameroon until their support is no longer needed.”
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the troops would provide intelligence to a multinational task force being set up to fight Boko Haram and composed of troops from Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Benin.
Advertisement
Boko Haram leaders this year pledged allegiance to Islamic State; both groups are fighting to establish an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East and Muslim lands in Africa.
It has been waging a vicious insurgency for several years that originated in Nigeria but has since spread into neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger and left an estimated 20,000 people dead.
African intervention: US President Barack Obama ready to board Air Force One in California on Monday. Photo: AP
On Sunday, two female suicide bombers killed nine people in the town of Mora in Cameroon’s Far North region, employing a tactic increasingly favoured by Boko Haram.
Authorities fear the terrorist group is using kidnapped girls for such attacks. It has kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in the past 18 months.
The American officials said the US soldiers would deploy initially to the city of Garoua in northern Cameroon, not far from the Nigerian border. The force will include Predator drones for surveillance, they said.
Predator drones will be deployed as part of the American surveillance effort against Boko Haram. Photo: Supplied
The White House said the move was not in response to any changed assessment of threat in the region.
The US has no combat troops in Africa, but has been increasing support to allies in the region battling Boko Haram.
The deployment marks the most direct US involvement to date in the campaign against Boko Haram. The Pentagon deployed one surveillance drone and 80 US troops to Chad in May 2014 to help locate more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls but that mission ended after several months.
The US military also flies unarmed drones from Niger, but those surveillance aircraft are dedicated to flights over the Sahara to spy on other Islamic extremists in north and west Africa, not Boko Haram.
Mr Obama pledged to ramp up support for Nigeria’s fight against the terrorist group when he met Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in Washington in July. He also committed the US to an intensified fight against terrorists on the other side of the continent from Cameroon, in east Africa. While visiting Africa in July, he announced his administration would expand support for counter-terrorism operations in Kenya and Somalia, including increased training and funding for Kenya’s security forces.
Reuters, Washington Post
