By Mohammed Tijjani

The Minister of Defence, Muhammad Badaru has said that military personnel in the last few months neutralised seven top insurgency commanders in the country.

The Minister said this while speaking to journalists on the sidelines of his working visit to the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji Military Cantonment, on Tuesday in Kaduna.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the minister addressed members of the Senior Course 46 of the College at a seminar organised on counter insurgency and counter terrorism.

The theme of the seminar is: “Imperatives of Operational and Tactical Level Leadership for Enhanced Counter Terrorism, Counter Insurgency  Operations in Nigeria”.

Badaru said, “the government’s commitment to defeating insurgency is a comprehensive security strategy and community engagement remains unwavering.

According to him, there is improvement in the fight against insurgency, adding that insurgency in the North-West occurs from time-to-time.

The minister said, “we cannot be able to put boots in every corner of the country, so as every other country.

“The military are not enough, what the bandits do is take advantage of soft targets.

“They find out where there is absence of the military, they attack and run to the bushes,” he said, adding that the troops were following them up and would defeat them.

He disclosed that the military would deploy surveillance and tracing technologies to find the terrorists and deal with them decisively.

“From what you have seen, in the last few months the military have killed about seven big leaders of the insurgency.

“We are working hard to continue defeating them, and we are making progress,” he added.

On non kinetic approach in the counter insurgency campaign, Badaru said many of the insurgents were surrendering.

According  to him, the government is accepting and de-radicalising the insurgents and reintegrate them into the society, while those who don’t want to repent would be decimated.

Speaking further after a facilty tour, Badaru said some of the facilities were meant to train special forces to fight insurgency.

The minister said that 2,400 special forces would be trained, adding the exercise would begin in two months with 800 military personnel under the first phase.

The special forces, he said, would be saddled with the responsibility of tackling the insurgents till they were done with them.

“There are enough fighting equipment and platforms, which after the training, they will go into the forests and fish out the terrorists,” he said.

The minister said the exercise was designed with different types of training camps including peacekeeping troops, to be deployed to Sudan, among others.

“This signifies the level of commitment to peace by the Federal Government and the military”.

Badaru commended the personnel in charge of the different trainings, adding that what he saw had reinvigorated his belief that the government would be able to surmount security challenges in the country.

He charged the personnel to be active, creative and always think ahead in order to continue defeating the criminals.