Troops of 199 Special Forces and 222 Battalions, Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) in coordinated military airstrikes have killed 200 Boko Haram terrorists on the fringes of Sambisa Forest in Borno state.
The launching of coordinated joint military operations of September, 1, 2022, also led to the neutralization of top five commanders of the terror group.
The five commanders include Abou Hauwa, Amir Shettima, Akura Bun (Nakif), Abou Zainab and Abou Idris.
A counter-insurgency expert in the Lake Chad region, Zagazola Makama, yesterday, (Sunday) in Maiduguri, stated that: “An intelligence led aerial and ground operations targeted the terrorists’ hideouts in the Gaizuwa border area axis, comprising Gabchari, Sheruri, Mantari and Mallam Masari villages in Bama Council of the state.”
He said that the ground troops had during the raid, stormed a hideout of the terrorists at Gafchari, where they engaged the soldiers in a gun battle.
According to him, the gun battle led to the killing of over 30 insurgents, while other escaped with gunshot wounds towards the forest.
He added that the Air Task Force (ATF), in another coordination with the ground troops, detailed two Super Tucano to conduct air interdiction missions against the terrorists.
This, he explained led to the killing of additional 70 fighters with many who tried to escape were drowned in a River drowned in the river.
“Similar strikes were also undertaken at Sheruri when the combat aircraft attacked another location of fighters deployed to stage an ambush against the ground troops,” he said.
He said the Super Tucano scored a devastating hits, killing two terrorist Commanders; Akura Buri (Nakif) and Abou Hauwa with more than 63 of their fighters and foot soldiers.
Continued; “In another separate encounter with the terrorists during the robust fighting patrol, the troops succeeded in eliminating another scores of insurgents in the axis of Mantari in a gun battle that lasted for over two hours.
“In Gazuwa, the troops destroyed two vehicles and the home of Abou Iklilima which used to be a hideouts to insurgent Leaders. Other makeshift tent and properties belonging to terrorists were also destroyed,”he said.”
According to him, few of the surviving terrorists who escaped the military raids returned on September 3 to recover terrorists’ dead bodies at Sheruri and Gabchari.
He noted that insurgents were able to retrieve 36 additional bodies of their members, who drowned in the river near Gabchari village.
Besides the retrievals of bodies, he said nine bodies recovered as a result of bullet wounds sustained in the bushes of Gaiazuwa, including the bodies of two commanders
Meanwhile, when the terrorists were making preparations to conduct mass burials for their killed commanders, the military authorities acting on the intelligence, also deployed Super Tucano to the location and neutralized most of them.
According to him, the targets were subsequently acquired and engulfed in flames.
He said that pandemonium broke out among the terrorists, as remnants of the surviving terrorists took cover under nearby trees, while others fled into the forest.
“This has completely degraded the capabilities of the terrorists in Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad region,” noted the Theatre Commander, OPHK, Maj-Gen. Christopher Musa in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
