YAOUNDE, Cameroon: Cameroon’s president says Boko Haram has been defeated in the country, the first such announcement since he declared war on the extremist group four years ago.
President Paul Biya spoke during his first visit to the Far North region since 2012 as he campaigned on Saturday ahead of the Oct. 7 election. The 85-year-old, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, has been in power since 1982 and is likely to win again as the fractured opposition has been unable to put forward a strong candidate.
Security is a major issue in Cameroon, a US and French military ally, as it also faces a bloody English-language separatist movement in the southwest and northwest.
Addressing a rally in Maroua, Biya said he would focus on rebuilding what has been destroyed in the Far North “now that terrorism has been defeated.”
The region for years has been the target of suicide bombings and other attacks by Boko Haram fighters who spilled over the border from Nigeria, where the extremist group is based. Nearly a quarter-million people in Cameroon have been displaced.
Boko Haram has not carried out a major attack in Cameroon in the past year and the number of attacks has fallen. Its fighters continue to attack military targets and cities in Nigeria’s northeast despite repeated government declarations that it has been “crushed.”
Biya warned Far North residents to remain vigilant despite recent progress including the re-opening last month of 40 schools along the border.
Not everyone warmed to the president’s comments at the rally.
Biya had abandoned the Far North and its people, said Garga Haman Adji, candidate with the Alliance for Democracy and Development opposition party.
“Biya never visited to encourage the soldiers who fought to defeat Boko Haram. He never visited people suffering from terrorism and is now here to beg for votes,” Garga said.
The fight against Boko Haram has raised questions about Cameroon’s security forces. Shocking videos that recently circulated online showed soldiers shooting defenseless civilians including women with young children strapped to their back, Amnesty International said after expert analysis.
Cameroon’s government has announced several arrests related to one of the videos and said any alleged abuses will be investigated.
Biya has not announced any campaign visits to the troubled southwest and northwest where fighting between government forces and the Anglophone separatists has killed nearly 400 people and sent nearly 200,000 civilians fleeing.
A heavy military deployment and recent crackdown on suspected separatist hideouts especially in the southwest, however, indicates that the president intends to visit in an effort to show the world that in spite of the tensions he remains in control.
Biya last visited the southwest in 2014 and the northwest in 2010.
The unrest began in 2016 when teachers and lawyers peacefully expressed dissatisfaction with what some English speakers, who make up about 20 percent of the country’s population, have called marginalization by French-speaking authorities in the officially bilingual country.
The armed separatist movement followed with the declaration of an independent state called “Ambazonia.” In recent weeks both weary civilians caught in the middle of the fighting and Cameroonian religious leaders have called for peace.
The separatists vow to disrupt next week’s elections.
Boko Haram has been repelled, Cameroon’s leader declares
Boko Haram has been repelled, Cameroon’s leader declares
- The region for years has been the target of suicide bombings and other attacks by Boko Haram fighters
- Boko Haram has not carried out a major attack in Cameroon in the past year and the number of attacks has fallen
Kremlin blasts potential EU deployment of French nuclear bombers
“The proliferation of nuclear weapons on the European continent is something that will not add security, predictability, or stability to the European continent,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The French president floated the idea during a TV appearance on Tuesday, comparing it to the United States’s nuclear umbrella policy that guarantees Washington would reciprocate if its allies come under nuclear attack.
“The Americans have the bombs on planes in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkiye,” Macron told TF1 television.
“We are ready to open this discussion. I will define the framework in a very specific way in the weeks and months to come.”
France is the EU’s only nuclear-armed nation.
Amid Russia’s offensive on Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s calls on Europe to take more of the burden for its own defense, discussion is growing over extending Paris’s nuclear deterrent to the rest of the 27-member bloc.
Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power, possesses about 4,000 warheads and views France’s nuclear deterrence as a potential threat to its national security.
“At present, the entire system of strategic stability and security is in a deplorable state for obvious reasons,” Peskov added.
Amid his offensive on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has several times threatened nuclear escalation, drawing rebukes from the West over “reckless” rhetoric.
‘Albania belongs in EU,’ von der Leyen tells re-elected PM Rama
- EU and French leaders congratulated Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Wednesday after his party’s electoral victory
BRUSSELS: EU and French leaders congratulated Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Wednesday after his party’s electoral victory, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailing his “great progress toward our Union.”
“Let’s keep working closely together on EU reforms. Albania belongs in the EU!” von der Leyen said on X. French President Emmanuel Macron also hailed Rama’s win, writing on X: “France will always stand alongside Albania on its European path.”
Germany arrests three Ukrainians suspected of spying in exploding parcel plot
BERLIN: Germany has arrested three Ukrainian nationals on suspicion of foreign agent activity linked to the shipment of parcels containing explosive devices, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The suspects are believed to have been in contact with individuals working for Russian state institutions, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
France says to expel Algerian diplomats in tit-for-tat move
PARIS: France will expel Algerian diplomats in response to plans by Algiers to send more French officials home, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Wednesday, as relations between the countries deteriorate.
Barrot told the BFMTV broadcaster that he would summon Algeria’s charge d’affaires to inform him of the decision that he said was “perfectly proportionate at this point” to the Algerian move, which he called “unjustified and unjustifiable.”
Japanese military training plane crashes with two on board
TOKYO: A Japanese military training plane crashed shortly after takeoff, authorities said Wednesday, with reports saying two people were on board the aircraft which appeared to have fallen in a lake.
“We’re aware a T-4 plane that belongs to the Air Self-Defense Force fell down immediately after taking off at Komaki Air Base” in central Japan, top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
“Details are being probed by the defense ministry,” he told reporters.
The T-4 seats two and is a “domestically produced, highly reliable and maintainable training aircraft... used for all basic flight courses,” according to the defense ministry website.
The aircraft was flying around Lake Iruka near Inuyama city north of Nagoya, according to media outlets including public broadcaster NHK.
“There is no sight of the plane yet. We’ve been told that an aerial survey by an Aichi region helicopter found a spot where oil was floating on the surface of the lake,” local fire department official Hajjime Nakamura told AFP.
He said his office had received unconfirmed information that there were two people on board but that they had not been able to independently verify this.
Aerial footage of the lake broadcast by NHK showed an oil sheen on its surface, dotted with what appeared to be various pieces of debris.
Just after 3:00 p.m. (0600 GMT) the local fire department received a call saying it appeared that a plane had crashed into the lake, the reports said.
The reports added, citing defense ministry sources, that the training plane had disappeared from the radar.
The defense ministry was not able to immediately confirm details to AFP.
Jiji Press said the local municipality had said there had been no damage to houses in the area.
