Three Boko Haram suspects arrested in Cameroon

Cameroon officials have arrested three suspects carrying a bag containing improvised explosive devices in the northern town of Maroua where a spate of suspected Boko Haram suicide attacks killed at least 40 last week, sources have said.

The men were caught on Thursday evening at the entrance of the city following a tip-off, a senior military source with the Central African nation’s special forces in Maroua told Reuters.

“The suspect who was carrying the bag with the explosives is a Nigerian. The other two are Cameroonians, according to their identity cards,” another senior local government administrator said on telephone from Maroua.

He said the young men, aged about 20, were suspected Boko Haram militants planning another attack.

Cameroon has increased troops and tightened security in the northern regional capital following the suicide bombings, the deepest incursion by suspected Boko Haram militants from neighbouring Nigeria.

Cameroon security officials also carried out a raid on Thursday in Kousseri, some 220 km (140 miles) north of Maroua, where some 2,000 Nigerians who were living in the country without permits were loaded in trucks and taken across the border.

A local administrator said the raid was part of measures aimed at improving security and controlling movements along the border region.