The Defence Headquarters has disclosed that its troops have neutralised 106 and arrested 164 terrorists, while 1,090 BH/ISWAP elements and their families surrendered.
The Director of Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, made the disclosure on Thursday during a press briefing at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja.
A breakdown of the surrendered terrorists and their families puts the figures at 117 adult males, 345 adult females and 628 children, who surrendered to troops of Operation HADIN KAI in Bama, Gwoza, Dikwa and Kala Barge LGAs of Borno State.
In addition during the week under review, 32 perpetrators of oil theft were arrested, even as 103 kidnapped hostages were rescued.
Furthermore, troops recovered 125 assorted weapons and 1,522 assorted ammunition, with the breakdown as follows: 41 AK47 rifles, 1 PKT gun, 24 locally fabricated guns, 28 dane guns, 1 pump action gun, 755 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo and 623 rounds of 7.62mm NATO.
Others are 102 rounds of 7.62 x 54mm, 63 live cartridges, 247 empty case of 7.62mm ammo, 22 AK47 magazines, 1 baofeng radio, 22 vehicles, 31 motorcycles, 2 bicycles, 10 mobile phones and the sum of N2,956,000.00 only, amongst other items.
In the Niger Delta area, troops discovered and destroyed 20 dugout pits, 24 boats and 34 storage tanks. Other items recovered include 56 cooking ovens, 2 speedboats, 14 pumping machines, 18 drums, 22 vehicles, 4 motorcycles and 36 illegal refining sites.
Troops recovered 802,200 litres of stolen crude oil, 121,900 litres of illegally refined AGO and 450 litres of DPK.
These arrests, rescues and recovery of weapons follows various operations such as offensives, raids, ambushes, fighting patrols and clearance operations by various theatres in the Northeast, Northwest, North-central, Southsouth and Southeast zones of the country.
According to Buba, the ongoing multi front military operations are focussed on targeting the centre of gravity of terrorists and their cohorts across the country, which has led to their being found and flushed out even as their military, administrative and logistics capabilities across the various theatres are being dismantled.
“The operations are going in an upward trajectory, even as we prioritised targeting the terrorist leaders, commanders, foot soldiers as well as their collaborators. Many of these categories of terrorist have been eliminated from the battlefield and we are after the others”, Buba emphasized.
