The Defence Headquarters, (DHQ), on Friday, disclosed that in the renewed efforts to stamp out insurgency activities in the country, a total of 869 insurgents have been killed while 321 kidnap victims were rescued by troops during the various operations embarked upon by the Armed Forces of Nigeria and other security agencies across the country in the last three months.
The coordinator, Defence Media Operations, (DMO), General John Eneche disclosed this to defence correspondents in Abuja while giving a breakdown of military operations between July and September this year.
He explained that “a total of 1,708 suspects were arrested for various offences while of a large cache of arms and ammunition were as well recovered in addition to a total of 37,117 barrels of stolen crude oil and total of 914,707 litres of stolen PMS recovered by the gallant troops.
He pointed out that during the period under review, the troops recovered total cash of N4.8m recovered from armed bandit’s informants in the North-West zone of the country, as well as a total of 3,829 livestock, 6,830 rounds of ammunition and 93 assorted rifles recovered from the armed bandits.
According to him, “the efforts and sacrifices of the gallant officers and men of the military as well as other security agencies that conduct these operations have been progressive, it thus behoves on us to keep the public abreast of our unrelenting and committed efforts in the various theatres of operation, hence this update.
“This would give a better perspective of the cumulative results of the operational activities and achievements of the military operating with sister security agencies in the various theatres of operation, across the geopolitical zones of the Country.
“Within the period under review, troops engaged in a series of land, maritime and air operations, involving both kinetic and non-kinetic activities across the country in major and subsidiary operations.
“The land operations conducted among others across the various theatres of operation include; clearance, ambush, raid, picketing, cordon and search operations as well as artillery bombardments and aggressive patrols.
“Others were maritime operations involving anti-piracy, anti-illegal bunkering, anti-crude oil theft and anti-pipeline vandalism operations as well as other duties such as anti-smuggling operations.
