Defence Headquarters (DHQ) on Friday vowed that it would continue with the ongoing counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in Nigeria’s six geo-political zones as they “are yielding encouraging results and making the country safer each passing day.”
In a statement in Abuja by Director Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba on the ongoing Military Operations by the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) and other security agencies as of Friday 17th November, he explained that during the week under review, “the military continues to target the leadership and chain of command of the terrorists, insurgents and extremists undermining the security of citizens in the country.”
According to him: “The ongoing counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations are making the country safer each passing day that these evil forces are decimated. The armed forces are on course with its operations, which are yielding encouraging results.
“The operations of the last one week, resulted in 50 neutralized terrorists with 122 of them arrested. Troops also arrested 49 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 182 kidnapped hostages.”
He added that In the South-South, troops denied oil thieves of the estimated sum of One Hundred Twenty-Eight Million Sixty-Six Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Five Naira (N128,066,825.00) only.
General Buba stated: “Furthermore, troops recovered 66 assorted weapons and 11,474 assorted ammunition. The breakdown is as follows: one Conqueror APC, one GPMG, one NSVT gun, one GT3 rifle, 25 AK47 rifles, 4 pump action guns, 2 locally made AK47 rifles, 3 locally made guns, one locally made revolver gun, 4 locally fabricated pistols and 4 long dane gun, 2 locally made hand grenades, one bandolier.
“Others are 574 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 640 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 150 rounds of 12.7mm ammo, 5 rounds of 9mm ammo, 10,520 live cartridges, 5 vehicles, 27 mobile phones, 12 motorcycle, 3 boafeng radios, one Motorolla HHR, 3 bicycles, one solar panel, one solar charger controller, one radio receiver and the sum of N75,909,290.00 amongst other items.
“Troops in the Niger Delta area destroyed 242 dugout pits, 49 boats, 78 storage tanks, one tricycle, 21 vehicles, 104 cooking ovens, 3 pumping machines, 7 outboard engines and 49 illegal refining sites. Troops recovered 151,850 litres of stolen crude oil, 48,630 litres of illegally refined AGO and 10,125 litres of DPK.”
General Buba who assured that the Armed forces would continue to apply strong military pressure such as has been witnessed in the week declared that the terrorist and their cohorts would continue to suffer heavy casualties saying that” It is in their interest to surrender as being done in the NE of the country to avoid eventual destruction.