As a result of the aggressive offensive action carried out by troops of Operation Fire Ball, a total of 75 Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists were neutralized as large number of their equipment were captured while some were equally destroyed in the process between 28th Sept-31st Oct 2020.
Operation FIRE BALL is a subsidiary operation under Operation LAFIYA DOLE which is meant to clear the remnants of the Boko Haram/ Islamic State West Africa Province terrorists from their identified enclaves in the North East region.
Within the period under review, the troops according to Brig. Gen. Benard Onyeuko, Ag Director Defence Media Operations, carried out aggressive clearance operations, ambushes, robust day and night patrols in order to finally decimate the remnants of the Boko Haram/ISWAP criminals
Consequently, criminal equipment such as 4 x Gun Trucks, 1 x Bedford Truck, 3 x Anti Aircraft guns,were destroyed while captured weapons include: 6 x Gun Trucks, 4 x Anti Aircraft guns, 1x PKT gun, 4 x General Purpose Machine Guns,1 x Automatic Grenade Launcher, 1 x Dushka Gun,
Others are; 1 x Light Machine Gun, 48 x AK 47 Rifles, 1x Locally made Pistol and 10 x AK 47 magazines.
Furthermore, large cache of ammunition were captured also. This include: 1 x 36 Hand Grenade, 567 rounds of 7.62mm Special ammunition, 448 rounds of 12.7mm ammunition, 50 x Rocket Propelled Grenade bombs, 17 locally manufactured rounds, 3 shells for making Improvised Explosive Device, 1 x Smoke Grenade and 2 x belts of PKT rounds. Other assorted non lethal items were also captured from the criminals.
Regrettably, Benard revealed that one officer and 2 gallant soldiers paid the supreme price while 4 other soldiers were wounded in action over the period.
However, the wounded soldiers have since been evacuated to a military medical facility and are currently responding to treatment, he noted.
The Army Authorities commend troops of Operation FIRE BALL under Operation LAFIYA DOLE for their resilience, doggedness and commitment exhibited since the beginning of the Operation as they are equally encouraged not to rest on their oars but build on the successes recorded so far.
“The entire populace of the North East region are hereby assured of the Nigerian military high command determination to finally rout the remnants of BHT/ISWAP criminals from their enclaves in this zone” he reaffirmed.
