BOKO HARAM: Soldiers Capture Camp

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By LAWRENCE ETIM.

The Special Forces involved in the ongoing campaign against the Boko Haram insurgents have recorded what security sources have described as one the greatest breakthroughs in the  campaign against terrorists  in the North-East. The Special Forces, comprising ground troops and the Air Force fighters, demobilized one of the strongest fortresses of the Boko Haram sect. It was learnt that the soldiers, who carried out the operation, were shocked by the volume of arms and ammunition and hundreds of operational vehicles that they captured at the camp. A source put the number of vehicles captured from the insurgents at 700 while several members of the sect were arrested.

The Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen Chris Olukolade, who confirmed the capture of the Boko Haram camp, said that several terrorists who were wounded in the military raids were arrested and had made useful confessions. In an electronic mail on Tuesday, he stated that some of the wounded terrorists who were captured near Lake Chad were pleading for mercy and were cooperating with interrogators from the Multi-National Joint Task Force. Olukolade said that some of the insurgents were captured by troops around Dikwa, Cross Kauwa, Kukawa and Alargarmo.

The captives revealed during interrogation that some of the camps were disbanded as the sect could no longer sustain the operation. “In their confessions, it was revealed that some of the camps have been disbanded following the directive of their clerics who declared that the operation of the sect had come to an end as the mission could no longer be sustained. “The captured terrorists, who are giving useful information as to the locations of their remnant forces, are full of apologies and pleas for their lives to be spared promising to cooperate,” the statement reads in part. Olukolade said that the captured insurgents complained of starvation and the frequency of bombardments as some of the major problems which affected them.

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The Defence spokesman warned members of the public to stay away from the area, saying troops were still continuing with the operation in the three states.