The Nigerian Military, Thursday said troops neutralised 227 and arrested 529 persons. Troops also arrested 11 perpetrators of oil theives and rescued 253 kidnapped hostages without 2 weeks of troops operations across all the six Geopolitical Zones in the country.
Director Defence Media Operations, Maj. General Edward Buba made the declaration at a media briefing on Thursday noting that Troops are fighting admirably in a very challenging complex combat environment and have made significant progress.
In the SS, troops denied the oil thieves of the estimated sum of One Billion Three Hundred and Twelve Million Four Hundred and Seventy Seven Thousand Fifty Naira (N1,312,477,050.00) only.
Furthermore, troops recovered 231 assorted weapons and 6,441 assorted ammunition. The breakdown as follows: 89 AK47 rifles, 40 locally fabricated gun, 59 dane guns, 2 pump action guns, 8 locally fabricated pistols, 6 x 36 hand grenade, 3 IED, one RPG 7 tubes, one RPG 7 charger, 4 AGL rounds, one barrel of QJC Gun, one barrel of PKT with receiver, one barrel of Dushka Gun, 250kg bombs used by NATO and Eastern Bloc aircraft and one MRAP.
Others are: 4,198 rounds of 7.62mm special ammo, 841 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 88 rounds of 5.56mm, 16 rounds of 7.62 x 39mm, 99 rounds of 7.62 x 51mm, 956 rounds of 7.62 x 54mm, 242 live cartridges, one PKM magazine, 24 magazines, 6 baofeng radios, 8 vehicles, 69 motorcycles, 66 mobile phones, 12 cutlasses and the sum of N1,630,000.00 only amongst other items.
Troops in the Niger Delta area discovered and destroyed 18 dugout pits, 34 boats, 5 drums, 4 receiver, 4 reservoirs and 97 storage tanks. Other items recovered include 198 cooking ovens, 9 vehicles, 3 pumping machines, 2 speedboats, one outboard engine and 57 illegal refining sites. Troops recovered 1,442,700 litres of stolen crude oil and 154,650 litres of illegally refined AGO.
Troops are fighting admirably in a very challenging complex combat environment and have made significant progress. However, there is still a lot of work ahead as there are still many more terrorist to kill, weapons to be recovered and many terrorist commanders and leaders to take off the battlefield.