Cameroon: Army kills five Boko Haram members

The Sahel’s fight against terrorism has intensified as the Cameroonian army kills five Boko Haram members in the Far North Bargaram region, as reported by the pro-Algerian AL24News and agencies on February 27th.

News of this military operation follows reports that a Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) in Bargaram, located on the Cameroon-Nigeria border near the Nigerian Borno State, was attacked by Boko Haram fighters from February 25th to 26th.

One Cameroonian soldier was killed in the exchange of fire when BIR soldiers responded to the ambush; five Boko Haram militants were killed.

Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), are Islamic State-affiliated groups primarily active in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, where escalating jihadist violence has forced thousands to seek refuge in Cameroon.

ISWAP broke away from Boko Haram in 2016, the latter being founded in 2009; Boko Haram’s name roughly translates to “Western education is a sin.”

Cameroon has also faced jihadist attacks, including in March 2025, when 12 soldiers were killed in a suspected Boko Haram attack in the Lake Chad area on the Nigerian border.

However, Boko Haram and ISWAP are not the only Sahel-based jihadist groups, as the al-Qaeda affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) also has a presence in Nigeria.

Furthermore, militants from Lakurawa primarily operate in northwestern Nigeria but originated in the Sahel. The group conducts raids on villages and kidnappings for ransom, which some jihadists call “economic jihad” and use to fund their operations.

The UN has warned that Islamist violence is growing in West Africa and the Sahel, where organisations like Boko Haram and ISWAP seek to impose an Islamic Caliphate, which would be governed by Sharia Law.

Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have sought to expand their influence from the Sahel and West Africa into the Maghreb in an effort to move closer to Europe.

In July 2025, the World Food Program warned that cuts to international humanitarian aid were allowing jihadists to exploit rising poverty and food insecurity by recruiting desperate people in exchange for food and protection.

Boko Haram has also been known to recruit women and children, sometimes forcibly, to use them as suicide bombers.

The presence of jihadist fighters has effectively turned some towns into militarised zones, where access to essential resources, such as food and healthcare, is heavily restricted.

AL24News and agencies, Maghrebi.org