A separatist commander known simply as General Alhaji was among some insurgents who were killed on Friday in Bafut, a locality in Northwest, one of the two troubled Anglophone regions of Cameroon, the Cameroon army said Saturday.

The death of Alhaji was confirmed by Kingsley Ashu, a separatist leader, in a Facebook post.

He was killed after a week-long military offensive in the locality that also witnessed the seizure of war weapons and dismantling of several separatist camps, local authorities said.

Alhaji was commanding one of the “largest and fiercest” armed separatist groups known as “Seven Katta Bafut Defence forces” in the region, according to security reports.

He became “notorious” in 2018 after kidnapping over 80 school children and teachers and a driver of a secondary school in Bamenda, Cameroon Anglophone’s largest city, security sources said, adding that his physical elimination could prove a major blow to the rebels in that region.

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the majority French-speaking nation and form a new country which they call “Ambazonia.”

Source: Xinhuanet