The Joint Military Task Force operating in the Nigeria’s north-east region yesterday dealt a fatal blow on the Boko Haram terrorists killing over 200 of its members in a swoop.
The Boko Haram sects engaged the JTF formation in a fierce battle in an attempt to free some of its members detained at the 21 Armoured Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Giwa Barracks on Friday morning.
The Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade said, the attack was effectively repelled with heavy human casualty on the terrorists.
A three hundred level student of the Department of Mass Communication at the nearby University of Maiduguri was hit by a stray bullet from the terrorists who operated in Mairi Kuwait area, a village close to the school hostel.
A lecturer in the Department of English of the same institution confirmed the attack in Mairi Kuwait area but said the insurgents couldn’t gain access into the institution.
Latest reports said over 200 members of the terrorists were fell to the superior fire power of the military whose Ariel attacked scattered the initial fierce resistance put up by the rampaging sects in Maimalari area.
Military sources said that several members of the sect who tried to escape into the town from the barracks were captured at Polo, Sulimanti, and other surrounding wards in Maiduguri metropolis, with the assistance of villagers and members of the vigilante youths popularly known as civilian JTF.
According to sources, no fewer than 207 suspected terrorists were feared killed by the military formation while over 50 others including some Arabs, Malians and Chadians were captured alive by troops with their weapons.
“The Civilian-JTF also put up impressive fight. They mobilised in their thousands to confront the attackers, armed with clubs, spears, axes, machetes, knives and sticks, and help to fish out some of them that escaped into the neigbourhood.
Agency report quoted one of the leaders at the Sector-5 formation of the Civilian-JTF, Mallam Abdullahi, as saying: “We have counted 207 dead members of Boko Haram in our area, Jiddari-Polo, alone. Many others are being killed in the bush because the fighter jet is still shelling them, and some of our members have accompanied the soldiers in pursuing them.”
The military men, according to sources were almost taken by surprise as the attackers were dressed in military uniform.
“So it was really difficult for us to distinguish between them and soldiers; so we had to devise a tactic of chanting Allahu Akbar and any person in uniform that answers we assumed was a member of Boko Haram, and we would carefully round them up and arrest them”, he said.
“Some of the Boko Haram members began to scatter as the fighter jet kept firing; many of them were killed and some had to run into the neighbourhoods, and we arrested over 30 of them especially in Jiddari-Polo area as well as Fori”
