article_snippet: CNN)Cameroon's security forces are predicting a drawn-out battle with Boko Haram as evidence filters out that the insurgents are now recruiting there.
article_snippet: CNN don't doubt that Boko Haram is recruiting in Cameroon," said Col. Joseph Nouma, commander of Operation ALPHA, a special military operation set up by Cameroon's government to fight the Nigerian terrorist group.
article_snippet: Boko Haram is a permanent metamorphosis, dying every day but recruiting every day as well," says Col. Jacob Kodji, interim commander of the 4th Military Region.
article_snippet: Boko Haram is a Nigerian-based Islamic group whose purpose is to institute Sharia, or Islamic law.
article_snippet: Boko Haram have carried out a campaign of terror in northern Nigeria, killing thousands, taking hundreds captive, and occupying swaths of territory in Borno state.
article_snippet: For the past two years, Boko Haram fighters have been carrying out cross-border raids on Cameroon, slaughtering hundreds and torching entire neighborhoods.
article_snippet: But as Cameroon's defense forces -- later joined by battle-hardened Chadian troops -- turned up the momentum against the insurgents, the terrorists began to swell the terrorists ranks with Cameroonians.
article_snippet: Nouma said Nouma believes "most of the worst attacks we have suffered" were carried out by Cameroonians fighting for Boko Haram.
article_snippet: In January, Boko Haram struck Fotokol, a Cameroonian town separated by only a bridge from Gambarou, Nigeria, a stronghold of the Islamist extremists.
article_snippet: Security officials say such a move makes such a move easy for Boko Haram to infiltrate Cameroon and gather vital security information.
article_snippet: But development projects can only be carried out in a climate of peace, and officials here hope that the Multinational Joint Task Force -- about 8,500 troops from Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin -- will defeat Boko Haram and lay that groundwork.
highlights_snippet: Military leader says "most of the worst attacks" were carried out by Cameroonians fighting for Boko Haram .
  