Troops still in Sambisa forest, says DHQ

The Defence Headquarters yesterday denied media reports that troops have retreated from the Sambisa forest, which has served as the main operational base for Boko Haram insurgents.

A statement by the Director of Defence Information, Major-General Chris Olukolade, said operation was progressing and gaining increasing momentum towards clearing all terrorist hideouts in the forest.

“It is noteworthy that it is becoming common for stories of attacks on some remote settlements to be fabricated and attributed to anonymous or unidentifiable source in remote places. This is apparently the work of terrorists’ sympathisers or propagandists.

“Military operations to eliminate all terrorist hideouts are going on well and the terrorists are being seriously decimated. They will continue to be pursued and prevented from constituting danger to civilian population in their desperation for survival, suicide or publicity,” Gen Olukolade added.

He debunked reports claiming that terrorists are now in control of Mafa in Borno State, saying that attempts by a group of fleeing terrorists who strayed towards the town and engaged typical suicide attacks were duly repelled by troops.

He continued: “Similarly, the claim by some media organisations that terrorists chased out troops and took over Marte cannot be verified as troops were busy elsewhere during the said attack.

“However, efforts to track the terrorists who were reported to have attacked the town have not indicated their presence as claimed.

“Surveillance activities are however ongoing although there has been no indication of the large number of terrorists as being claimed in some reports attributed to anonymous sources.

“The terrorist are certainly no longer capable of that level of coordinated action by thousands of terrorists as reported.”

Gen. Olukolade advised the media to ignore what he described as “fabrication being churned out by some terrorists sympathisers trying to encourage the terrorists who he said were in disarray”.

“The truth is that the operation to decimate them from Nigerian territories is progressing well. The military will not be dissuaded by the resurgence of false reports on the operations.  The progress will be prosecuted as necessary”, he said.