Nigerian JTF Kills Nine Boko Haram Members in Kano

Nigerian military forces share a joke while occupying the capital of Lagos. The Federal Government deployed troops to ban protests after a unilateral settlement was imposed on labor after a one week general strike., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

JTF kills nine Boko Haram men in Kano

By Kolade Adeyemi, Kano
Nigerian Nation

ABOUT 100 kilometres from the commercial city of Kano, a five-hour gun battle in which nine suspected Boko Haram members were killed raged yesterday.

They succumbed to the superior fire-power of the Joint Task Force – the special military team fighting the sect’s insurgency.

Two members of the fundamentalist sect were arrested by the JTF men, who recovered containers of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), a large cache of arms and ammunition at Tudun Wada Local Government Area, 100 kilometers away from the Kano metropolis.

The gunmen, suspected to be non-Nigerians, were aged between 16 and 20 years.

Members of the sect bombed the residence of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Tudun Wada Police Station, before bombing the station, where they carted away AK 47 rifles as well as other arms and ammunition from the armoury.

The assailants also had a botched attacked on a branch of Unity Bank, which is adjacent to the bombed police station.

“But they did not succeed in breaking into the vault stocked with about N2 million,” Brig-Gen Illyasu Abbah, the officer in charge of 3 Brigade, Nigerian Army, Kano told reporters after the wee-hour gun battle.

He said: “Within the hours of 2am and 7 a.m. on Wednesday (yesterday), hoodlums went to Tudun Wada, which is about 100 kilometers from Kano. They used explosives to blow the police station in the area.

“They destroyed the DPO’s house; they went to the police station and did the same. They also used explosives and blew up the Unity Bank adjacent to the police station.”

The army chief said the sect members carted away rifles from the bombed police station.

According to him, unknown to the attackers, who were suspected to have come in from Kano metropolis, “they never knew that the JTF were there for them”.

Gen. Illyasu said: “On getting the information, at about 1:30 a.m. security operatives mobilised, blocked Falgore, Jos and Kano axis because, definitely, they came from Kano to operate and move back.

“During the gun-duel, the JTF over-powered members of the sect who came with three cars, and recovered the arms and ammunition stolen from the destroyed police station.

“Only God knows what these weapons would be used for, if they had succeeded in carting them away. These hoodlums lack arms and they have been in desperate mood to get these items. That is why their best place of attack is police stations.”

Gen. Illyasu said the DPO and his family were not injured, just as the attackers failed in their bid to break into the bank’s vault, “which they had targeted; and no member of the JTF was injured.”

Items recovered from the suspects include, 600 rounds of 5.6 mm bullets, 176 cartridges of pump action gun, 147 rounds of 9mm bullets, two AK 47 rifles, three pistols, two assorted rifles, two smoke guns, 21 magazines, two den guns, one pump action gun, six containers of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), 70 canisters of tear gas, one laptop, police uniforms and helmets.