TERRORISTS SURRENDER WEAPONS IN BORNO "JITTERY OVER SHEKAU’S REPORTED DEATH "JONATHAN TAKES CASE TO UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
FOLLOWING relentless onslaught by Nigerian troops, many members of the
Boko Haram terrorists group are beginning to surrender voluntarily.
Some of them submitted themselves and their weapons to the leadership
of the troops in Konduga, during a further campaign at the weekend.
A security source told the Nigerian Tribune that so far, over 40 Boko
Haram insurgents had surrendered their weapons and had confirmed to the
authorities that their leader, Abubakar Shekau, was killed in the
Konduga attack.
He told the Nigerian Tribune that Shekau, who was
moved by the killing of one of his commanders in Bama town of Borno
State, had ordered a full scale war on the military, before he met his
death at Konduga.
According to him, “many of the insurgents have
no more courage to fight again. Now that they know that Shekau had been
killed, many of them are now surrendering their arms. I believe we are
coming to the end of insurgency in the North-East.”
The Defence
Headquarters, in its Twitter handle, said “as the heat on the terrorists
continues, five terrorists surrendered with all their weapons to troops
at Konduga, pleading for mercy on Saturday.”
Other captured
terrorists, who refused to surrender, had also been giving useful
information on the subsequent plans of the group in an apparent offer to
cooperate.
In the last few days, there have been several
attempts by terrorists desperate to gain entry to Konduga, which the
Nigerian troops had continued to foil.
It was gathered that the
move by the terrorists was aimed at recovering bodies of prominent
fighters who had died in the previous encounters in the area.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian troops have recovered more weapons during the
mop-up operations while some of their (terrorists’) vehicles have been
destroyed.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram issue has been confirmed to be
one of the issues President Goodluck Jonathan is expected to present at
the 69th Session of the United Nations (UN) Assembly holding in New
York, United States, on Wednesday.
The Special Adviser to the
President on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, who hinted this in a
statement, said Jonathan would “address the UN Security Council
High-Level Session on Threats to International Peace and Security Caused
By Terrorist Acts.”
President Jonathan left Abuja, on Sunday, to
attend the UN General Assembly, where he is also expected to attend
receptions to be hosted by President Barack Obama of the United States,
British Prime Minister, David Cameron and the Secretary-General of the
UN, Ban Ki-Moon.
President Jonathan is billed to present Nigeria’s statement to the General Assembly on Wednesday.
Abati, in the release, said the President would stop over in London for a brief private visit before proceeding to New York.
He also noted that the president “is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Ban and the British Prime Minister, Cameron.”
President Jonathan is expected back in the country on Thursday.
Shekau, Finally Dead?
Nigerian troops might have scored a strategic victory in the current
battle against terrorists operating in the North-East on September 17.
During a desperate attempt to capture Konduga in their delusion to
eventually marching on and capturing Maiduguri, the man who had been
mimicking the late Abubakar Shekau in recent videos might have been
finally killed.
According to senior military and intelligence
sources, “it is getting more certain that the terrorists’ commander, who
has been mimicking Shekau in those videos, is the one killed in Konduga
on September 17, 2014.”
The sources said the suspected demise of
the Boko Haram leader is responsible for the scattering of the sect
members in different independent locations in the neighbouring
countries, especially Cameroon, in recent days.
The security
sources did not deny the suspicion but cautioned that “the process of
confirming that the dead body we have is the same as that character who
has been posing as Shekau is ongoing. He is definitely a prominent
terrorist commander. I don’t want to say anything about this yet
please.”
Another high ranking military source insisted that the
resemblance is too striking to be a coincidence. They cited his facial
marks, beards and teeth, apart from the recovery by the Nigerian troops
of some of the Armoured Vehicles and Hilux jeeps that had featured in
previous videos of the prime suspect.
The officers assured that
the Defence Headquarters will soon address the nation after full
investigation of their latest discovery.
Source: #Tribune_News.
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