The Armed Forces of Nigeria, on Thursday said that its troops deployed to different theatres of operations, across the country, killed no fewer than 2,245 terrorists, arrested 3,682 others, and rescued 1,993 kidnapped hostages, in the second quarter of this year.
The Armed Forces, also revealed that troops, recovered 2,783 weapons, 64,547 ammunition and denied the oil theft of an estimated sum of ten billion, five hundred and thirty three million, one hundred and thirty one thousand, four hundred and seventy naira, only.
Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj Gen Edward Buba, made this disclosure during a press conference at the Defence Headquarters (DHQ), in Abuja. Buba further revealed that troops recovered 9,225,149 litres of stolen crude oil, 2,874,916 litres of illegally refined AGO, 29,900 litres of DPK and 31,380 litres of PMS amongst other item.
He noted that the weapons and ammunition recovered include, 1,169 AK47 rifles, 36,273 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 14,764 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 713 assorted arms and 9,850 assorted ammo. He also noted that the military has emplaced measures to guarantee security of farmers throughout the raining season, as part of effort to ensure food security.
While answering questions on the strategy the military is adopting to provide security to farmers across the federation, Gen Buba said: “Operational flexibility allows us to attend to strategic need as it arise. In this particular instance, and answering your question, we have looked into the issue of protecting our farmers and farm land. This is because we are in the raining season, and we have a situation in the country where it seems like food shortage is around the corner and we must not allow that to happen, that is very strategic and as a result of that we must protect this farms, we must ensure that they are able to farm so that we can have a bumper harvest afterwards, and then the citizens will have food on their tables. I will however not reveal our operational strategy on how we are doing that to you because we are aware that the enemies are also watching us as we speak”.
He said, the terrorists exist for the sake of war and for the sake of peace, they would continue to kill them. On the security in FCT, Gen Buba said, “Our troops are out there in every corner of Abuja including the mountains. We also have our men who are picking intelligence for us to prevent crimes before they occur”.
He said the resolve of the armed forces is very clear and it is to destroy the terrorist and dismantle their military capabilities in order for citizens to be safe. He said that troops are actively fighting in different forms and retain operational flexibility which gives them the ability to respond to different events and to project forces according to strategic needs.
Buba noted that the military has greatly degraded the terrorist, even though they are still present in the theatres of operation.
Stressing that it would take time and effort to completely destroy these terrorists, particularly as counter insurgency is akin to a marathon not a sprint, the director said, “It is safe to say that the terrorist have prioritised their military capability over everything else. This is because as our forces advance and clear areas in which these terrorist hibernate, we continue to recover weapons, explosives and IEDs which are indicative of the priorities of the terrorist”.
He concluded that the military will continue to wipe out the terrorist through synchronised ground and air operations.
Ikechukwu Aleke in Abuja
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