By Ujo Aguma
The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has confirmed that its Air Components of Operation Thunder Strike and Operation Gama Aiki on Wednesday 2 March 2022, between 4.45pm and 6.34pm carried out airstrikes on bandits’ locations around Ghana Village in Mariga Local Government Area (LGA) of Niger State, Northcentral Nigeria.
The concerted airstrikes cam barely a week after Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Oladayo Amao, reassured that terrorists and insurgents will have no hiding place again in Nigeria.
Sources said that the targeted terrorists have been under surveillance for some time and were observed to be in three different groups of approximately 65 terrorists with at least 25 motorcycles per group.
The source noted that “rather than strike individual groups separately which may not achieve the desired outcome, the surveillance team patiently waited until the three groups amassed at a crossroad location near Ghana Village. It was at this point that the airstrikes were authorized.”
Stating that the precision strikes had a 100 per cent accuracy going by the intensity and spread of the fireball which entirely engulfed the terrorists, the source added that “at least, nothing less than 80 terrorists and the equipment would have perished in that strike.”
He added that a minimal number of survivors were however seen crawling or barely limping off from the location, which the ground troops immediately mobbed up.
Also, a resident from near the Ghana village, Mallam Biko Usman, a local cobbler, confirmed seeing “a huge fireball as aftermath of the strike, adding that “there was a lot of pandemonium and confusion as ground troops quickly surrounded remnants of the terrorists.”
Indeed, the Niger State Government, through the Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Affairs and Internal Affairs, Mr Emmanuel Umar, at a briefing in Minna on Wednesday confirmed that over 200 terrorists were killed by military air strikes and other joint operatives in some Villages in Mariga LGAs and other parts of the State between 28 February and 2 March 2022.
When contacted, NAF Spokesperson Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet confirmed that “the strikes were indeed authorized and carried out alongside sister services and security agencies on terrorists’ locations somewhere in Mariga LGA of Niger State after days of intensive surveillance so as to avoid unintended casualties.”
Pressured on the number of terrorists killed, Air Commodore Gabkwet stated that it would take a while to confirm the number of casualties, noting however that “what matters is not necessarily the number of terrorists killed, but the fact that locals can move around freely, and children can also be able to go back to their schools without threats to their lives.”
