Among Cameroonian bandits, mutilation of the lower extremities is considered a message to those who might be inclined toward pursuit, a well-known signal that they would best keep their own legs from leading them to certain death.

The Asemes are but the latest casualties in repetitive waves of attacks on rural Gabonese by coupeurs de route, armed thieves who have fled from antigang crack-downs in Yaoundé and Ambam in Cameroon using graft to buy the cooperation of police and slipping easily through porous border checkpoints along the Minkébé wilderness’s mountain ridges. Once believed to pose a threat only at our country’s northernmost boundaries, these thugs have in recent months formed alliances of convenience with splinter guerrilla bands made fugitive by Congolese political conflict, and together staged raids on townships such as N’Dendé, deep in our country’s interior, with scattered incidents of road ambush reported as far south as the Iguéla, Loango, and Sette Cama Forests near the coast. The stepped up violence has led Gabonese law enforcement officials to ask their colleagues across the border when they intend to take responsibility for apprehending their vicious castoffs. . . .

From the Cameroon Tribune Online
—Editorial
(translated from the French):

GABON’S NATIONAL CREDO: IF YOU
CANNOT COMPETE, CONDEMN!

by Motmou Benote

Let us begin with the obvious: gang violence and brigandage are unacceptable wherever they may originate. But unless Gabon ceases it efforts to make others accountable for the outlaw problem in its northern districts, casting blame elsewhere rather than engaging in an aggressive pursuit of homegrown malefactors and tribal agitators, its police and military forces will soon be pointing their guns skyward to guard against menaces from distant galaxies. . . .

They toiled in the steamy midmorning heat, a dozen men in jungle fatigues swinging their machetes through the parched brown sedge and waxy clusters of euphorbia beside the dirt road. They kept their sleeves rolled down and wore heavy protective gloves, taking care to cover their skin; the succulents were filled with burning latex juice, and had thorny spurs all along the ribs of their fat, tangled branches.

The men thrashed at the dense vegetation. Their head wraps were drenched with sweat. The camouflage hoods they would put on were still stuffed in their pockets, unneeded as yet. There were no eyes about to see them, and they were not in any hurry to feel the heavyweight Nomex/Kevlar fabric slicken against their streaming wet cheeks and brows.

They worked in the heat, worked ceaselessly, creating clear fields of fire for their ambush. Their shoulder-slung Milkor 5.56-mm semiautomatic rifles were of South African origin, as were the lightweight 60-mm commando mortars and multishot barrel-loaded grenade launchers hidden farther back in their 4×4. Two Shmel RPO-A infantry rocket tubes rounded out their arsenal of heavy weapons, the “Bumblebee” variants designed to fire fuel-air explosive warheads.

A Russian military specialty used to devastating effect during their Chechen campaigns, man-portable thermobaric hardware cannot be purchased cheaply on the black market.