Boko Haram kills 7, abducts 8 girls in Cameroon

Nigeria's Boko Haram fighters have abducted at least eight girls and killed seven hostages after seizing a public bus in one of their most brazen attacks inside neighboring Cameroon, residents said Tuesday.

The armed group, which kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria last year in an incident that drew international condemnation, has taken eight Cameroonian girls hostage, said Chetima Ahmidou, the principal of a school in the area. The girls range in age from 11 to 14 and come from the town of Koza, he said.

The bus attack took place Sunday about 11 miles from Cameroon's border with Nigeria. Seven other hostages were slain and their bodies scattered near the border, said Ahmidou, whose brother was the bus driver and was among those killed.

Boko Haram has fought a five-year insurgency against the Nigerian government, launching scores of attacks that left 10,000 people dead last year alone. In recent weeks, the group has intensified its assaults on neighboring countries. Cameroon, Niger, Benin and Chad all have pledged to send soldiers to be in an 8,750-strong multinational force that aims to squash the violent movement.

On Monday, Niger's parliament unanimously voted to approve supporting the mission. The vote came just hours after a car bombing in the town of Diffa, which was blamed on Boko Haram, who had launched three other attacks on the town since Friday

In the last few days, Niger has massed more than 3,000 troops in Diffa on its southeastern border with Nigeria, awaiting approval to go on the offensive.

"The pooling of the efforts and resources of concerned countries will contribute without doubt to crushing this group which shows scorn, through its barbaric acts, for the Muslim religion," Niger's parliamentary speaker Adamou Salifou said after the vote late Monday.

Locals in Diffa, which lies just a few miles from territory controlled by Boko Haram, have long spoken of sleeper cells infiltrating their communities.

Several security sources warned that militants, who had been living among civilians in northern Nigeria, were among those who had fled into Niger with them.

"Most of the Boko Haram fighters who have operated in Diffa have come from these displaced. They are Nigerian refugees or people from Niger who had been in Nigeria," one officer said.

An intensification of Boko Haram violence near Lake Chad, which straddles Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, has sent tens of thousands of Nigerians fleeing across the border.

Nigeria postponed its Feb. 14 presidential election by six weeks, citing security concerns.

Wire services