Chad's army has waged a series of battles against Boko
Haram as part of a cross-border military campaign and has re-taken
territory the militant group held in northeastern Nigeria.
"Abubakar Shekau must surrender. We know where he is. If
he doesn't give himself up he will suffer the same fate as his
compatriots," he told a news conference after a regional meeting.
"He was in Dikwa
two days ago. He managed to get away but we know where he is. It's in
his interests to surrender," Deby said, referring to a town in
northeastern Nigeria held by Boko Haram that fell to Chad's army earlier
this week.
Nigeria's presidency declined to comment on Deby's remarks and a defense
spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nigeria's military has said on at least three occasions it
had killed Shekau, or a man claiming to be him. Each time the leader
has resurfaced to issue a fresh jihadist video, one of numerous videos
the group has made.
The Chadian army is considered one of the best in the region,
backed by a strong air force. It first deployed to help Cameroon fend
off Boko Haram and is now pressing southwest into Nigerian territory
after capturing the border town of Gambaru last month.
Boko Haram, a Sunni militant group, has killed thousands
of people in Nigeria during a six-year insurgency to carve out an
Islamic caliphate. It has also staged a series of recent cross- border
attacks into Chad, Cameroon and Niger.
On Wednesday, a bomb planted and remotely detonated by
Boko Haram militants near the southeastern Niger town of Diffa killed
two soldiers and wounded a third, Niger military sources said.
In a separate attack, armed men on a motorbike killed at
least two people in Kerawa, in the Far North region of Cameroon, on
Tuesday around 2 p.m. (1300 GMT), according to a Cameroon army officer
who declined to be identified.
(Additional reporting by Abdoulaye Massalaki in Niamey,
Sylvain Andzongo in Yaounde and Julia Payne and Felix Onuah in Abuja;
Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Larry King)
SOURCE: yahoonews
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