YAOUNDE, Cameroon: Two young suicide bombers killed three people in far north Cameroon on Sunday, the latest attack to hit a region that has been rocked by strikes blamed on Boko Haram Islamists from neighbouring Nigeria.
The youths set off their suicide belts in the town of Mora as a police officer became suspicious of their appearance and approached to question them, a security source said.
"The toll is five dead including two civilians, a police inspector and the two suicide bombers," a security source at the scene told AFP.
A separate source close to regional security forces confirmed the toll and said the attackers, who aimed to target the town's market, were a "young girl and a young boy," without giving any more details.
"If they had succeeded in their plan, the toll would have been terrible," the second source added.
The police officer who was killed had just finished his shift and gone to the market to buy food, the security source said.
"When he saw five suspects he challenged them, but the first suicide bomber exploded himself," killing the officer immediately.
The second bomber then detonated his device a few hundred metres (yards) away, while the other three suspects fled, the source added.
A police hunt was underway for the remaining suspects. One person was said to be in serious condition after the attacks.
It was the third time this month the area has been hit by double suicide blasts -- seven people were killed in a strike in Kolofata on September 13 and between 20 and 40 people died in a bombing on September 3 in Kerawa.
Since July, around 100 people have died in suicide attacks in the extreme north of Cameroon, which has joined the regional fight against Boko Haram.
The Nigerian-based Islamists have seized countless children and youths during their six-year insurgency that has killed at least 15,000 people and left more than two million homeless.
The town of Mora is situated on a crossroads leading north to Chad and Cameroon and west to Nigeria. It is also the headquarters of one sector of the multinational force fighting Boko Haram as well as housing a Cameroon motorised infantry base.
The multinational force involves troops from Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Benin.
Nigeria's military on Saturday claimed further gains in its counter-offensive against Boko Haram, but the group's shadowy leader Abubakar Shekau dismissed the talk of success as "lies".