By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) on Thursday disclosed that troopss have eliminated about 392 bandits in its operations in the north west and central axis of the country.
The Coordinator, Defence Media Operations (DMO), Defence Headquarters, Maj. Gen. John Enenche stated this during a media briefing in Abuja.
He announced that the commencement of operation Katsina which is a subsidiary of Operation Hadarin Daji had made it tougher for the bandits, leaving the few surviving ones to flee to other areas for their lives hence the launching of operation ACCORD to tackle the situation.
“The gallant troops through land and air offensives successfully neutralized 392 bandits since the commencement of Operation KATSINA, which seriously degraded the bandits and other criminal elements in the two zones.
“Those bandits that escaped resorted to reprisal attacks on civilian targets.
“However, Operation ACCORD was preemptively planned by the High Command of the Armed Forces of Nigeria to handle this situation.
“In this regard, the Chief of Defence Staff ordered the commencement of Operation ACCORD from 1 June 2020”. He explained.
Enenche explained that the Operation ACCORD which is a concomitant operation by all theatres in the two zones of north west and central is a joint operation involving the Armed Forces of Nigeria including other sister agencies.
He said the operation is to tackle all the banditry and other criminal activities and to identify their hideouts and their hibernations and do measure clearance through air and land combat operations.
Consequently, Enenche said all the various operations have progressed successfully in all theatres of operations in the last one week.
He said, in the North East, the Armed Forces of Nigeria and other security agencies have been on the offensive against the terrorists mainly through the Land and Air components of Operation LAFIYA DOLE.
According to him, the significant feats achieved in this theatre include deletion of key BHT/ISWAP commanders, destruction of their logistics bases and cutting off their supply routes.
He added that, the terrorists’ camps have been in disarray as a result of the killing of some of their key commanders through airstrikes and artillery bombardments on their identified locations. This is additional to the aggressive mobile clearance operations and air interdictions.
He said, the troops had compared the terrorists to now carry out attacks in depleted strength on soft targets which is being effectively countered by the gallant troops of Operation LAFIYA DOLE.
Gen. Enenche therefore said all these feat was achieved by the troops due to the cooperation of the general public and further enjoined them for more credible information for the enhancement of its operations that could translate to actionable intelligence.
“The Military High Command congratulates all the gallant troops of Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Air Force and personnel of other security agencies involved in various operations across the country.
“Furthermore, it enjoins the public to be proactive in providing timely information by reporting suspicious movements and strangers within their locality to troops stationed in their areas. This is very necessary for enhancement of operational activities”.
He therefore assured the general public of the Armed Forces of Nigeria that the offensives against the common enemies of Nigeria until normalcy is restored to all the troubled regions of the Country.
