Boko Haram is strapping bombs to birds as it continues to develop more deadly weapons in its bloody insurgency in Africa.

The commander of a coalition battling the Isis-affiliated militants revealed the discovery at a meeting with American diplomats and security officials.

Major General Lamidi Adeosun showed gruesome photos of the victims of Boko Haram’s attacks and their latest weapons during the briefing at the Multinational Joint Task Force's headquarters in Chad on Wednesday.

Nigeria army struggles to hold ground taken from Boko Haram

One picture showed a bird with an explosive strapped on its back, demonstrating “a lot of ingenuity,” he said.

Maj Gen Adeosun said his forces had received intelligence that Isis members were being imbedded with Boko Haram but that the Nigerian terrorist group had not satisfied requirements for greater operational co-ordination.

It is not the first report of birds being used to carry explosive devices.

Photos emerged in July last year claiming to show bombs strapped to chickens by Isis fighters in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

There was speculation that they could be resorting to increasingly bizarre means of destruction while running out of ammunition but the account could not be verified.

The Syrian Army said Isis had rigged animals with explosives in Palmyra

Isis is known to be unusually liberal with its use of explosives, which it manufactures using cheap chemicals and equipment readily available on the civilian market.

A Syrian officer involved in the operation to re-take the group’s former stronghold of Palmyra last month described how jihadists had “booby-trapped everything”, including animals and trees.

Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau made a pledge of allegiance to Isis in March last year and released a message urging its fellow sub-Saharan jihadists to do the same, further increasing the group’s reach.

The move was a major coup for the so-called Islamic State, which re-named its affiliate Wilāyat Gharb Ifrīqīyyah (West Africa Province).

After expanding its campaign of terror from Nigeria to Chad, Niger and Cameroon, Boko Haram was named the deadliest terror group in the world last year.

The Global Terrorism Index said it was responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014 and that number is expected to have risen as its insurgency against Christians and local government continues.

As well as high profile terror attacks and massacres, the group has become notorious for large-scale kidnappings including the abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from Chibok.

The rise of Boko Haram Show all 20 1 /20 The rise of Boko Haram The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau delivers a message. Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the mass killings in the north-east Nigerian town of Baga in a video where he warned the massacre “was just the tip of the iceberg”. As many as 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,700 homes and business were destroyed in the 3 January 2015 attack on the town near Nigeria's border with Cameroon AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People displaced as a result of Boko Haram attacks in the northeast region of Nigeria, are seen near their tents at a faith-based camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Yola, Adamawa State. Boko Haram says it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria's medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nitsch Eberhard Robert, a German citizen abducted and held hostage by suspected Boko Haram militants, is seen as he arrives at the Yaounde Nsimalen International airport after his release in Yaounde, Cameroon on 21 January 2015 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Officials of the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) visit victims of a bomb blast in Gombe at the Specialist Hospital in Gombe. According to local reports at least six people were killed and 11 wounded after a bomb blast in a marketplace in Nigeria's northeastern state of Gombe on 16 January 2015. Islamist militant group Boko Haram has been blamed for a string of recent attacks in the North East of Nigeria The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People gather at the site of a bomb explosion in a area know to be targeted by the militant group Boko Haram in Kano on 28 November 2014 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People gather to look at a burnt vehicle following a bomb explosion that rocked the busiest roundabout near the crowded Market in Maiduguri, Borno State on 1 July 2014. A truck exploded in a huge fireball killing at least 15 people in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the city repeatedly hit by Boko Haram Islamists The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram President Goodluck Jonathan visits Nigerian Army soldiers fighting Boko Haram Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Displaced people from Baga listen to Goodluck Jonathan after the Boko Haram killings AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan speaking to troops during a visit to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State; most of the region has been overrun by Boko Haram AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Members of the Nigerian military patrolling in Maiduguri, North East Nigeria, close to the scene of attacks by Boko Haram EPA The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, appears in a video in which he warns Cameroon it faces the same fate as Nigeria AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nana Shettima, the wife of Borno Governor, Kashim Shettima (C) weeps as she speaks with school girls from the government secondary school Chibok that were kidnapped by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, and later escaped in Chibok The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram South Africans protest in solidarity against the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria by the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram and what protesters said was the failure of the Nigerian government and international community to rescue them, during a march to the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Boko Haram militants have seized the town in north-eastern Nigeria that nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped from in April 2014 AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram A soldier stands guard in front of burnt buses after an attack in Abuja. Twin blasts at a bus station packed with morning commuters on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital killed dozens of people, in what appeared to be the latest attack by Boko Haram Islamists, April 2014 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The aftermath of the attack, when Boko Haram fighters in trucks painted in military colours killed 51 people in Konduga in February 2014 AFP/Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau (with papers) in a video grab taken in July 2014 AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Ruins of burnt out houses in the north-eastern settlement of Baga, pictured after Boko Haram attacks in 2013 AP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram A Boko Haram attack in Nigeria, 2013 AFP/Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s leader AP

Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, commander of US special operations in Africa, described the surrounding Lake Chad Basin region as “ground zero” in the fight against extremism in Africa.

America, Britain and other European nations are among those supporting military intervention against Boko Haram.

More than 30 personnel from the British Army’s Royal Anglian Regiment were deployed to train Nigerian soldiers earlier this year.

“We stand united with Nigeria in its efforts to defeat the murderous Boko Haram extremists,” Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said at the time.

He committed to doubling the number of British personnel carrying out training in Nigeria this year, sending explosives specialists, medics and an RAF training team.