By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Nigeria military said its troops during the week under review, neutralised 197 terrorists and arrested 310 persons.
Major General, Edward Buba, Director, Defence Media Operations, stated this on Thursday in Abuja, while giving update on the military operations in the country.
He said the armed forces understands that the terrorists exist for the sake of war, and therefore for the sake of peace they must be eliminated. “Our war effort is therefore designed and crafted to defeat and destroy the terrorist as well as dismantle their terror infrastructure across the country.
“Momentum is crucial to our operations and it is the reason we take the fight to the enemy and allow them no respite. Accordingly, our operations are focussed on our war efforts, our mobilization and air strikes to destroy the terrorists.”
Speaking further, he said troops also arrested 22 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 251 kidnapped hostages.
“In the SS, troops denied the oil theft of the estimated sum of Seven Hundred and Sixty Five Million Six Hundred and Fifty Four Thousand One Hundred Naira (N765,654,100.00) only.
“Furthermore, troops recovered 180 assorted weapons and 5,123 assorted ammunition. The breakdown as follows: 2 PKT guns, one fabricated Arty gun, one G3 rifle, 73 AK47 rifles, 17 locally fabricated gun, 21 dane guns, 2 pump action guns, 2 revolver rifles, one short dane gun, 3 double barrel guns, 3 single barrel guns, one pistol, 4 locally fabricated pistols, 5 fabricated baretta pistols, one berretta pistol, one jojef magnum pump action gun, one Exp 64 semi auto rifle, 10 hand grenades, 3 60mm mortar bombs, bandoliers and 10 fabricated Arty bombs.
“Others are: 3,207 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 1,022 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 13 rounds of 9mm ammo, 243 rounds of 7.62 x 54mm, 240 rounds of 7.62
x 51mm, 132 rounds of 5.56 x 54mm ammo, 143 live cartridges, 59 magazines,
one pistol magazine, one ECOME HH radio, 4 baofeng radios, 4 vehicles, 47 motorcycles, 21 mobile phones and the sum of N1,236,200.00 as well as
CFA 608,000.00 only amongst other items.”
He added that troops in the Niger Delta area discovered and destroyed 29 dugout pits, 22 boats and 26 storage tanks.
“ Other items recovered include 66 cooking ovens, 85 drums, 8 vehicles, 3 mobile phones and 43 illegal refining sites. Troops recovered 728,360 litres of stolen crude oil, 143,450 litres of illegally refined AGO, 1,100 litres of DPK
and 18,750 litres of PMS.”
