N'DJAMENA, April 9 (Reuters) - Chad's army said on Thursday
it had killed as many as 1,000 Boko Haram fighters and lost 52
of its own soldiers in a 10-day old operation that followed the
jihadist group's deadliest-ever attack on national forces.
Chad's army launched the operation on March 31 after Boko
Haram killed nearly 100 Chadian soldiers in an ambush a few days
earlier. It has been battling the Nigerian jihadist group in the
remote western Lake Chad zone for years. "Our men occupied two Boko Haram island bases and have also
deployed on the Lake Chad banks of Niger and Nigeria. They will
keep their positions until the arrival of these countries'
troops," spokesman Azem Bermadoua said in a statement.
He said the operation was complete and that 196 Chadian
soldiers had been wounded.
The remoteness of the region meant it was not immediately
possible to independently verify the death toll from the
fighting, nor the impact on the civilian population.
The Boko Haram insurgency, which erupted in northeast
Nigeria in 2009, has killed more than 30,000 people and forced
about 2 million to flee their homes.
Chad's armed forces are among the most respected in the
region, a reputation forged during decades of war and
rebellions, and honed in a 2013 campaign against al Qaeda-linked
Islamists in the deserts of northern Mali.