By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Nigeria Military said its troops kill 213 terrorists and arrested 216 of them across the country.
Major General Edward Buba, Director Defence Media Operations, stated this on Thursday while giving update on the military operations in the country.
He added that the troops also arrested 67 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 26 kidnapped hostages.
Speaking on the recent kidnapping in kaduna, he said “given the hostage situation, it can be deduced that the search and rescue effort was grossly affected by the none timely notification of troops of the incident. Nevertheless, I can assure you that we will not rest until these hostages are returned.
“However,because of the sensitivity of the matter, I can not go into further details as to signs of life, location, and the different options that we have in order to get these hostages back.
“I can further assure that, getting these hostages back is very clearly on the top of our priorities. It is for this reason we have leveraged on our international partners for support. Accordingly, they are providing the necessary support including intelligence that is giving us the advantage in dealing with the ugly situation.
“Importantly, as it is often said, we are at war and ugly things happen during war. During times of war, it is common place to witnness propaganda, deception, misinformation, disinformation and fake news. Our situation is no different.
“There is therefore the need for citizens to be circumspect when they see post from these terrorist groups and their cohorts, particularly on social media. These groups feed on the attention that they receive in the media to sway the populace. We must be conscious of that and avoid being used directly or indirectly against our national interest.
“Of recent, these terrorist initiated a post that went viral on the attack of military vehicles. It might interest you to know that, that particular incident was reported when it occurred in Dec 2023. One soldier lost his life as a result of the attack. Afterward, troops conducted synchronised attacks killing the leader of that group and several of his foot soldiers.”
He said the post is clearly an act of desperation by the terrorist to conceal their weakness. “Overall, We are winning the war and making life unbearable for these terrorist. We continue to degrade them each passing day. We have seriously depleted their ranks to the extent that they are on a desperate recruitment drive, hence some of the witnessed abductions.
“ Several of their leaders and commanders have been neutralised as a result of troops onslaught. They want to use these hostages as human shield for their survival. Nevertherless, be assured that we will not rest until the hostages are returned.
“As patriotic citizens, we must resist the temptation to celebrate post from terrorist and enemies of the state. These are not good people, rather they are devils from the pit of hell. Consequently, If you find yourself celebrating terror, you’re wrong. Pure and simple.”
