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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Attack on Chinese company in Cameroon drags Yaound into campaign against Boko Haram |
| 2014-06-15 |
| An assault on a Chinese road-building camp in northern Cameroon is the latest in a series of regional attacks on Chinese workers and facilities. The camp with 52 staff was run by a Sinohydro engineering unit involved in road improvement as part of a joint World Bank/Cameroon government project. Close to the camp is an oil exploration site run by Yan Chang Logone Development Holding Company, a subsidiary of China's Yanchang Petroleum (Reuters, May 20). The exploration group is working in the Logone-Birni basin in north Cameroon. The nighttime attack, believed to have been the work of Nigeria's Boko Haram movement, overcame resistance from a much-diminished Cameroonian guard force before the attackers seized ten Chinese employees, wounded another and lifted ten Sinohydro vehicles as well as blasting equipment used in road construction (Xinhua, May 18). China has expressed concern over the possibility of military action to rescue the hostages: "We urge the Cameroonian authorities not to put the lives of the Chinese nationals missing in danger if actions to liberate them are launched" (China Daily/Xinhua, May 19). France quickly offered its assistance to China in finding the ten missing workers (AFP, May 18). The timing of the attack appears to have been well-planned, coming as most of the camp's guard from the elite Brigade d'intervention rapide (BIR) was in Yaound" preparing to take part in a military parade marking Cameroon's National Day on May 20 (This Day [Lagos], May 17). Pursuit by Cameroonian air assets was also impossible as the helicopters normally deployed to the frontier region were also in the capital for the military parade (AFP, May 18). Ironically, the parade's highlight was Cameroon's newly acquired Chinese armor, including two platoons of Type 07P infantry fighting vehicles (equipped with a 30 mm gun and a coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun) and three platoons of PTL-102-type armored tank destroyers (equipped with a 105 mm gun). The new armored vehicles are part of Cameroon's Bataillon blind" de reconnaissance (BBR -- Armored Reconnaissance Battalion) (Cameroon Tribune, May 21; IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, May 21). On May 26, the BIR returned north to the Nigerian frontier along with some of Cameroon's new Chinese-built armored vehicles. The force of roughly 1,000 troops is expected to join 700 other troops already deployed to the frontier region in March to combat Boko Haram (Reuters, May 27). The attack also came at the same time Cameroonian president Paul Biya was in Paris attending the "Paris Summit for Security in Nigeria" with high-level representatives from Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Benin, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Cameroon has committed to joining Nigeria, Benin, Niger and Chad in contributing one battalion each of troops dedicated to combatting Boko Haram (Vanguard [Lagos], May 20). An existing joint force of troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad has been largely ineffective in halting cross-border violence. Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, recently complained that Nigerian forces are unable to pursue Boko Haram forces when they cross the border without getting special permission from Yaound" (Daily Trust [Lagos], May 19). Cameroon is now in the process of creating military bases in all ten regions of the country to improve local security as regional conditions deteriorate (Cameroon Post, May 18). |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #1 Oh boy, when the Chinese get involved things can get very complex. I wouldn't put it past them to use false flag forces to gin up the violence to let them put their main military into play or at least send in their equivalent of the Foreign Legion, a very nasty bunch. |
| Posted by: Pearl Borgia1889 2014-06-15 21:22 |