The Defence Headquarters on Thursday said its troops in different operations in the northern part of the country eliminated 129 terrorists in the last two weeks.
The acting Director, Defence Media Operations, Major -General Bernard Onyeuko, who disclosed this in Abuja while giving an update on the activities of troops between January 6 and 20, said 64 terrorists were arrested and items of security concern were recovered from them.
He noted that a total of 863 terrorists and their families surrendered during the period.
This brings the total number of repentant terrorists to 24,922.
Onyeuko said, “Troops conducted various land and air operations in different locations of the theatre with renewed vigour that recorded significant results in the last two weeks. Notably, ground troops, with the support of the air component, aggressively foiled terrorists’ attempted infiltration into Biu town in Borno State. During the encounter, troops neutralised scores of the terrorists and captured their gun trucks and other weapons.
“Consequently, within this period under review, troops neutralised 37 terrorist elements, arrested 17 of them, and recovered 21 assorted arms and 117 rounds of different calibres of ammunition, while a total of four gun trucks were captured from the terrorists.”
During the period, he said troops also rescued 27 Nigerians held captive by the terrorists.
Onyeuko also disclosed that troops discovered and immobilised a total of 39 illegal refining sites, 91 cooking ovens, 24 reservoirs, 17 large dugout pits, and 96 storage tanks in the South-South region.
