A Test case of conventional warfare Vs Terrorism

We join other peace-loving Cameroonians in appreciating the courage and devotedness of the Cameroon military in their campaign against the evil forces of the Boko Haram sect.

Our appreciation also goes to the Head of State for his concern about the security of the nation, and his untiring effort to secure international support.

To our Muslim brothers who have continuously denounced the unholy teachings of extremists, and who have continued to insist that such teachings are un-Islamic, we would like to state categorically, that their position is an added weapon on the arsenal for the war against jihadists.

Although cynics would find it a little difficult to take recent statements by Muslim clerics and leaders seriously, we are comforted by the fact that no region that preaches the Almighty God, the creator of man in his own image, will embrace violence and the destruction of man as a doctrine.

The truth is that even Muslim communities too are being targeted by extremists. For this reason, their attachment to the course as well as their co-operation is most welcome.

Having said this, we are disturbed by the fact that we fail to realize that the war against Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon, and her other neighbors is a test case of a conventional warfare versus terrorism.

In a conventional war, one can always easily locate the position of the enemy through the application of military intelligence.

In this case, not everything, not every move against the enemy must be said or publicized. While we equally appreciate the Minister of Communication for his regular press conferences, in which he tends to brief the population on the situation on the ground, we are tempted to believe that the enemy most of the time, tends to gain much from certain information and may use it against us.

Those who plan the war must have realized by now that they are dealing with an enemy they don’t know physically. An enemy that hits and runs. The capacity of their armory we do not know. For instance after the recently ended meeting of members of ECCAS, in Yaounde, it was announced that a total of FCFA 50 billion has been budgeted to finance the war, probably to buy arms.

We hold the belief that the extremists have sponsors capable of rising even much more than that for their campaign. We would like to suggest that a greater percentage of this budget be put or military intelligence for the purpose of locating the source of their financing in order to destroy it.

It requires much more than just firing and killing a few hundreds of the enemies and hurry on air to announce this as a success story.

It is fast getting to the stage where, their ranks have to be infiltrated, studied and destroyed. Military intelligence expertise should be sought from the US, Britain, France and other big powers, well equipped for this.

After all, the threat of extremist insurgency has become a global concern. All hands must be put on deck if the world has to silence the guns of the extremists.

Obviously videos of the beheading of their victims are not just script movies but real and instantaneous.