The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) says the Air Task Force (ATF) of ” Operation LAFIYA DOLE” has destroyed two gun trucks and neutralised several Boko Haram Terrorists (BHTs) at ZARI on the fringes of the Lake Chad in Borno State.
Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, who disclosed this in a statement on Friday in Abuja,said that the operation was carried out on Thursday.
” The air strikes were conducted sequel to intelligence reports indicating that dozens of BHTs in 5 vehicles had withdrawn to a location underneath some trees about 5 Km Southwest of ZARI, after an engagement with own troops at ZARI.
” Accordingly, the ATF deployed Alpha Jet and F-7 attack aircraft as well as an Mi-35M helicopter gunship supported by two Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms to conduct a massive attack against the insurgents.
” Overhead the target area, the BHTs, who were initially seen assembled by their vehicles along the road, rapidly dispersed to disparate positions within the general area, with some of them seen firing at own platforms,” he said
Daramola said that the NAF attack aircraft, therefore, struck the various positions in successive coordinated waves; destroying 2 of the BHTs’ vehicles and neutralizing several BHTs in the process.
He said that some of the surviving insurgents were seen fleeing the location in different directions, adding that ” these were accordingly mopped-up in subsequent follow-on attacks”.
The NAF spokesman said the NAF would continue to deploy its platforms to conduct intensive ISR missions in the entire North East aimed at discovering the possible locations of remnants of BHTs and neutralising them.