Boko Haram targets Cameroon
July 27, 2014
The wife of Cameroon's vice prime minister, Amadou Ali, was kidnapped and at least three other people were killed on Sunday in an attack in the northern town of Kolofata, Cameroonian officials said.
The town's Muslim religious leader, or lamido, was also kidnapped along with his entire family.
Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said the attack happened early Sunday morning.
Cameroonian troops have become increasingly involved with the fight against Boko Haram in the region, despite repeated warnings from the militant group that Cameroon stay out of its fight with the Nigerian military or risk further violence.
Sunday's incident is the third suspected Boko Haram attack in Cameroon since Friday.
Attacks in Nigeria
In Nigeria's largest northern city Kano, at least five people were killed in an attack on a Catholic church Sunday. Police said the attacker threw a bomb at worshippers in the mainly Christian area of the city shortly after mass.
In a separate attack, a female suicide bomber killed herself and injured at least two other police officers when she blew herself up outside a university in Kano, according to police.
Boko Haram's bloody insurgency has killed thousands of people, including more than 2,000 civilians this year, since they began fighting the government in 2009 in its attempt to establish an Islamic state in the country's mainly Muslim north.
dr/kms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)