Nigerian armed forces have killed at least 200 terrorists in sustained air strikes over the past three days in Niger State.
An aerial operation by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), Air Component of Operation Thunder Strike and Operation Gama Aiki that took place on Wednesday between 4.45 pm and 6.34 pm in some bandit camps within Ghana was said to have eliminated several of them.
The terrorists had been under surveillance for some time and were observed to be in three different groups of approximately 40 terrorists, with at least 25 motorcycles per group.
A military source who spoke to PR Nigeria said that precision strikes of troops had a 100 percent accuracy, going by the intensity and spread of the fireball which entirely engulfed the terrorists.
“At least nothing less than 150 terrorists perished in that strike,” according to the source.
He, however, said a few of the terrorists who survived the strike were seen crawling or barely limping off from the location, which the ground troops immediately mobbed up.
Previous air strikes were also said to have eliminated a good number of the terrorists, with sources placing the number killed at about 200.
Emmanuel Umar, the state’s Commissioner for Local Government, Community Development, Chieftaincy Affairs and Internal Security, confirmed this on Wednesday, a statement from Mary Noel-Berje, media aide to Governor Abubakar Bello, said.
According to the statement, Mr Umar spoke at a press briefing at the Government House, Minna on the directive of the governor.
Mr Umar, according to the statement, said many commanders of the terrorist groups were killed in the operations, pointing out that the eliminated terrorists belonged to the camps of Ali Kawajo, Yello Janbros, Kachalla Halilu and Bello Turji.
Niger State has been the hot bed of banditry activities in the North-central zone of the country.
Bandits have killed hundreds of persons while many other have been either kidnapped in schools or in other places such as places of worship and homes.