The military in N'Djamena said the militants were repelled but the counter-attack was an indication of the task facing regional forces aiming to crush the rebellion.
Troops from Chad, Cameroon and Niger have been deployed to fight the Islamists, whose bloody insurgency has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2009 and now threatens Nigeria's neighbours.
In Niger a suicide bomber was killed, without causing any other casualties, in the Diffa region bordering Nigeria on Wednesday.
The bomber, a man or woman wearing a hijab, was spotted by police who opened fire. "The explosion left no victims," the official said.
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan defended a decision to delay the country's general election by six weeks because of the unrest, saying he was "very hopeful" that the multi-national offensive will see successes against the Islamists in the coming weeks.
"Initially, our neighbours were not too committed" to fighting Boko Haram but the new cooperation was promising, he said.
Jonathan also dismissed allegations that his political interests motivated the decision to push back the polls initially scheduled for February 14, in his first public comments since the delay was announced.
"I was not consulted and I don't want to be consulted" on the postponement, Jonathan said in a nationally broadcast interview, insisting that election officials made an independent decision after receiving guidance from the security agencies.
(culled: yahoo news)Hopefully in six weeks , book haram will be a thing of the past......true or false. Don't even know what to thing anymore.
off course there must be some form of initial gra gra from the boko boys... sooner or later... their steam will go down and fizzle out like every other group before them ... perhaps our president is right... but however, he has promised no shift in the hand over date (may 27)... with the combined effort that is now in operations in the fight against boko boys we will win(www) goodluck
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