Security forces in Chad have seized a large weapons cache including
guns, rockets and ammunition in a house in the capital N’Djamena
occupied by suspected members of Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram,
officials said told Reuters Friday.
The weapons, buried under the
courtyard of the house in the eastern neighbourhood of Guinebor, were
destined for northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram has launched a wave of
attacks in recent weeks despite suffering heavy military defeats this
year.
Amid a resurgence in attacks in Nigeria’s Borno state,
suspected Boko Haram insurgents rounded up
and shot dead dozens of
people in the town of Kukawa on Wednesday.
“These were
weapons that Baana Fanaye, Boko Haram’s logistics chief for northern
Cameroon and Chad, was preparing to send to Nigeria,” said one
investigator, who asked not to be identified. Fanaye was arrested in a
raid by Chadian police last month.
Chad has played a leading role
in a regional offensive against the armed group this year, in parallel
with forces from Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger.
Two suicide attacks
in N’Djamena in mid-June by suspected Boko Haram members, which killed
34 people, were believed to be in retaliation for Chad’s part in the
campaign.
Chadian authorities arrested 60 suspected militants on
June 27 and said they had dismantled a cell responsible for the suicide
attacks. Two days later, five officers and six militants were killed
during a raid on an arms cache.
State prosecutor Alghassim Khamis
said the latest arms cache, discovered on Thursday, was found hidden in
one of the houses raided on June 27.
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