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Chad launches 'massive' joint operation against jihadists

A member of the Nigerian Armed Forces Sniper Unit wearing a ghillie suit poses for a photo during the African Land Forces Summit (ALFS)  - AFP
A member of the Nigerian Armed Forces Sniper Unit wearing a ghillie suit poses for a photo during the African Land Forces Summit (ALFS) - AFP

Chad has launched a major offensive against Boko Haram jihadists hiding out around the vast Lake Chad basin.

Videos shared on social media by Chadian soldiers show machine guns mounted on Toyota’s pounding bullets into the dusty Sahelian landscape and boats filled with whooping soldiers speeding across the lake’s waterways.

The offensive follows a devastating militant attack on a military base in Boma, Lac province on March 23rd. The jihadists surrounded the base and killed 98 soldiers and injured dozens of others, according to the Chadian government.

Idriss Déby, the central African nation’s brutal dictator of thirty years and a seasoned general, visited burned out camp and said it was the deadliest attack on the military in Chad’s history

Now the government have launched an assault on hidden jihadist bases around the Lake Chad codenamed ‘Boma’s Wrath’, in coordination with the governments of Nigeria and Niger.

In a televised address on Tuesday, Chad’s Defense Minister Mahamat Abali Salah said that they were deploying five companies of soldiers to neighbouring Niger and Nigeria to clear the islands on the lake.

The Chadian military has reportedly already asked the local population to leave the region and has declared the area a war zone.

Boko Haram launched a bloody insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria but later spread its atrocities spread out across the region.

Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon joined a multinational force to defeat the militants in 2012.

But despite regular announcements of victory from the Nigerian government, Boko Haram and its splinter group, Islamic State in West Africa Province, have gone through a resurgence in the last year killing hundreds of local soldiers.

Last week’s attack shook the Chadian regime to its core. Mr Déby commands a small but powerful army made up of soldiers largely from his own Zaghawa ethnic group.

They are widely regarded as the skilled fighting force in the region and Mr Déby has used his military to win support from France and the US.

The regime sent thousands of soldiers to drive jihadists allied to Al Qaeda out of northern Mali in 2013. It has also conducted successful operations in the past against Boko Haram.

Almost 3 million people have been forced to flee their homes and more than 30,000 people have been killed in Nigeria since Boko Haram’s insurgency began, according to the UN.