The Nigerian troops have neutralised 52 terrorists, while 204 of them were arrested.
In a statement, the Director Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba said that “troops also arrested 58 perpetrators of oil theft and rescued 234 kidnapped hostages”.
According to him, in the Southern region of the country, troops denied the oil theft of the estimated sum of Six Hundred and Sixty-Eight Million Seven Hundred Thirty-One Thousand Naira (N668,731,000.00) only.
Furthermore, troops recovered 46 assorted weapons and 148 assorted ammunition.
The breakdown is as follows: 30 AK47 rifles, 2 Josef magnum pump action gun, one double barrel gun, 2 single barrel guns, 12 locally made pistols, 13 Dane guns, one hand grenade, 9 locally made rifles, 3 RPG chargers, 2 locally made hand grenades.6.
Others are 120 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 364 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 54 live cartridges, 11 rounds of empty cases of 7.62mm special ammo, 32 magazines, 34 vehicles, 64 mobile phones, 47 motorcycles and the sum of N1,582,690.00 amongst other items.
General Buba noted that troops in the Niger Delta area destroyed 7 dugout pits, 25 boats, 47 storage tanks, 5 vehicles, 141 cooking ovens, one pumping machine, one outboard engine, one tricycle, one speedboat, one tugboat and 51 illegal refining sites.
He said that “troops recovered 267,700 litres of stolen crude oil, 567,700 litres of illegally refined AGO and 5,000 litres of DPK”.
According to him, troops collaborated with personnel of DSS to conduct a sting operation that culminated in the arrest of the leader of ISWAP terrorist group in charge of North Central and North West Zones.
Similarly, air interactions have been conducted on several enclaves of these terrorist leaders in the NW and NC zones with much success.
Sadly in the fight against economic saboteurs in the SS, a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) MI-35P helicopter crashed at 7.45 am in Port Harcourt.
The incident took place in Port Harcourt shortly after the aircraft took off to embark its operations. Gladly, the entire crew of 5 survived the crash with very minor injuries.
They are responding to treatment at NAF Medical Centre Port Harcourt. Nevertheless, the incident would be investigated and the outcome communicated.
Dominica Nwabufo
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