TerrorismNigeria launches “massive” military campaign against Islamists
One day after the president of Nigeria said that Islamist terrorists, who now control parts of northeast Nigeria, have declared war on Nigeria, the Nigerian military has deployed thousands of troops to three states in the country’s northeast to reassert the government control over the area.
Following the Tuesday announcement by President Goodluck Jonathan of a state of emergency in three states in northeast Nigeria, the Nigerian military on Wednesday deployed thousands of troops to the border area.
The military said it was sending a “massive deployment of men and resources” to combat Islamist militants in Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa states.
The military said the drive was aimed at “asserting the nation’s territorial integrity” and “enhancing security”.
The BBC reports that the Islamist Boko Haram group has killed more than 2,000 Nigerians since 2010.
The group has close links with al Qaeda-affiliated militants in the Sahara region, and has access to increasingly sophisticated weaponry, some of it coming from Libya following the fall if Qaddafi.
Wednesday’s Ministry of Defense statement said the army, police, and other security agencies had begun operations to “rid the nation’s border territories of terrorist bases and activities”.
The goal of the drive would be to assert the nation’s territorial integrity, focusing on enhancing security of governmental structures after the president said attacks on government buildings and killings of officials and other civilians amounted to a declaration of war.
“We’ve had a lot of problems [of] border crime, and criss-crossing of the border by the insurgents, and there’s also evidence that some of the insurgents really are non-Nigerians,” presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe told the BBC.
“As long as the terrorists can go in and out unchallenged, then we’re in big trouble.”
