ABUJA – Two top commanders of Boko Haram and eleven other terrorists have been killed in a recent counteroffensive by combined troops of the Northeast Joint Taskforce Operation, Hadin Kai, in the Bitta and Wulgo communities of the Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State.
The commanders, identified as Abu Nazir (Munzir of Juye) and Abu Fatima (Munzir of Koloram) led the terrorists to two failed attempts to attack the two communities on Thursday, August 21 and Friday, August 22, leading to the killing of the 13 terrorists by ground troops in close support with the air component command of the theater of operations.
Confirming the killing of the two Boko Haram commanders in the early morning counterattack on the terrorists, the Theater Commander, Northeast Joint Taskforce Operation, Hadin Kai, Maj. Gen. Abdulsallam Abubakar, disclosed that the terrorists attempted to infiltrate Bitta and Wulgo at midnight on Thursday in separate operations, but troops immediately engaged them in a fierce gun battle which lasted several hours into the early hours of Friday morning.
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The theater commander said six motorcycles belonging to the terrorists were recovered along with several AK-47 rifles, a cache of ammunition.
Maj Gen Abubakar disclosed further that several of the terrorists escaped with varying degrees of injuries in the repelled attacks.
Bitta and Wulgo are among the seven resettled wards in the Gwoza LGA. They were formerly displaced by Boko Haram terrorists when they captured and briefly made Gwoza a Caliphate of the terrorist group in 2014.
Troops of the Nigerian Armed Forces have since reclaimed Gwoza and some communities under the LGA, including Bitta and Wulgo, while the Borno State Government has resettled the communities, but there have been pockets of attacks from the terrorists.
This was as result of the proximity of the Mandara mountains to the communities and the Cameroonian border at the other side of the mountains, where the terrorists are known to be hibernating.