113 Terrorists Killed, 300 Arrested By Troops In One Week – DHQ
The Defence Headquarters has disclosed that no fewer than 113 terrorists were killed and 300 arrested in the last week by troops in the revamped fight against insecurity in the country
The DHQ also said the infrastructure of these terrorist and bandit groups and their foot soldiers would not be spared across the various theatres of operations.
Speaking on Thursday, during the bi-weekly briefing on the activities of the military across the country in Abuja, the Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, said terrorists and bandits are already counting their loss as their leaders have become their target Nigerian troops recently.
He said, “There is no doubt that these groups must be defeated and are indeed being defeated. It is for this reason we are inflicting severe damage on the terrorist, insurgents, and violent extremists through our operations across the country.
“Accordingly, we are targeting their leadership, infrastructure, and foot soldiers. The coordination between the air and ground forces is like never seen before yielding amazing results and achievements. ”
He said, “The operations of the last week, resulted in 113 neutralised terrorists with 300 of them arrested. Troops also arrested 25 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 91 kidnapped hostages. In the SS, troops denied oil theft of the estimated sum of N571,793,350.00 only.”
Buba added that troops recovered 129 assorted weapons and 717 assorted ammunition.
”The breakdown is as follows: one Unserviceable AA gun, one RPG tube, five RPG bombs, one GT3 rifle, 54 AK47 rifles, eigjht locally fabricated rifles, one locally made rifle, two pistols, two pump action guns, two Dane guns, four locally fabricated pistol, three skeletons of AK47 rifles, nine hand grenades, one unserviceable AK47 rifle, 14 magazines, 321 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 40 live cartridges among others,” he added.
Buba, however, warned troops on the frontline against human rights violations.
According to him, the military high command would not hesitate to court martial any troop found culpable.
He said, “It is important to highlight that the AFN is a disciplined well-trained force that conducts its operation within the ambit of laws governing human rights and that of armed conflict. We have rules of engagement that are followed in the course of our actions. Nevertheless, there are standing court martials to put on trial any erring personnel that is found wanting during operations.”
Hafsoh Isiaq is a graduate of Linguistics. An avid writer committed to creative, high-quality research and news reportage. She has considerable experience in writing and reporting across a variety of platforms including print and online.
