No fewer than 200 terrorists were Wednesday killed in ‘Ghana’, a community in Mariga Local Government Area of Niger State, PRNigeria reports.
The bandits, it was learnt, were eliminated by air strikes of Nigerian military air troops.
The aerial operation by the Nigerian Airforce (NAF), air component of Operation Thunder Strike and Operation Gama Aiki took place on Wednesday between 4.45 pm and 6.34 pm in some bandit’ camps within Ghana.
This is coming barely a week after the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Oladayo Amao, reassured Nigerians that terrorists and insurgents would have no hiding place.
PRNigeria gathered that the terrorists had been under surveillance for some time and were observed to be in three different groups of approximately 40 terrorists, with at least 25 motorcycles per group.
However, rather than strike individual group separately, which may not achieve the desired outcome, the surveillance team patiently waited until the three groups gathered at a crossroad location near Ghana Village.
It was at this point that the air strikes were authorized.
A military intelligence source, privy to the operation, revealed that precision strikes of troops had a 100 per cent accuracy, going by the intensity and spread of the fireball which entirely engulfed the terrorists.
“At least, nothing less than 150 terrorists perished in that strike,” according to the source.
A minimal number of survivors were however seen crawling or barely limping off from the location, which the ground troops immediately mopped up.
The Niger State Government, through the Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Affairs and Internal Affairs, 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 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.
