Troops kill 50 Boko Haram suspects, capture three

By The Rainbow

'They more they come the more the go' appears to be the watchword of the the Joint Task Force (JTF) as they continue their onslaught on Boko Haram members in the Northeast state of Borno State.

About  50 members of the terror group in were killed and three captured  Maiduguri, Borno State.

The death occurred at the weekend after the JTF clashed with armed terrorists in Zabarmari ward of Maiduguri metropolis, the state capital.

According to reports,  Zabarmari ward was one of the identified havens of the insurgents.

Meanwhile, the efforts of the Vigilance Youths Group ( otherwise known as 'Civilian JTF') have begun to bear fruits. The group on Saturday arrested three Boko Haram suspects at the Borno Express Motor Park.

The operatives of the Islamist group were said to be on their way to  Jigawa State to launch attacks.

A report in  The Guardian quoted a top JTF source as saying on Sunday that the terror suspects were killed before they could launch attacks in Zabarmari ward of Jere Local Council of Maiduguri.

The newspaper quotes the sources as saying,  'We received an intelligence report that a high number of Boko Haram terrorists had regrouped and were residing and hiding in this ward. We mobilised our troops to the area, and on reaching the place, the suspects upon noticing our presence, began to chant 'Allahu Akbar,' (God is Great) and started shooting sporadically at the JTF troops. We, therefore, had no option than to repel the attackers; we succeeded in shooting dead 10 terrorists.

'We decided not to take away any of their corpses, we left them in the area, but the following day, when we mobilised our men to the area, we found out that hundreds of the terrorists were at one of the graveyards burying their dead ones, and when we approached, some of them started shooting at our troops which led to the exchange of gunfire for half an hour, that led to the killing of 40 of them.'

'As I am talking to you now, our men are still in Zabarmari hunting for suspected terrorists who might have escaped the deadly encounter.'

'The men of the JTF are highly delighted with the zeal/effort being put in place by the vigilance youths, popularly called Civilian JTF. They were yesterday (Saturday) able to arrest three Boko Haram suspects at the Borno Express Motor Park.

'They later handed them over to the JTF local commander. After their torture, one of them died. The terrorists are from Bama Local Council on a suicide mission to Jigawa and other states in the North. In fact, the deceased before his death told us that, already, all their weapons of massive destruction had been transported to the targeted areas; waiting for them to arrive before luck ran out on them.'

He said the other arrested suspects, who seemed to be in stable condition, promised to take the JTF men to Bama to show them some of their members' hide-outs.