The Minister of Defence, Muhammad Badaru, has said that no fewer than seven top terrorists commanders were killed by security forces in the last few months.
The Minister, who made the announcement on Tuesday during a tour of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College in Jaji, Kaduna State, said there has been progress in the war against insurgency and banditry, adding that banditry in the North West zone occurs less frequently than in the past.
He also revealed that the military is using monitoring and tracing technologies to track down terrorists and deal with them decisively, stressing that bandits take advantage of the lack of more men on the ground to launch pockets of attacks across the country.
He did, however, state that the military is aggressively chasing the bandits to flush them out of their enclaves.
Regarding a non-kinetic strategy to the war against insurgency, he said that many rebels are surrendering.
As a result, he stated that the military is admitting and de-radicalizing rebels before reintegrating them into society, while those who refuse to repent will be dealt with until their deaths.
Speaking following a tour of some of the cantonment’s military facilities and formations, he stated that some of the facilities were designed to train special troops to combat insurgency.
The minister stated that a total of 2,400 special forces would be trained, with the first phase beginning with 800 military men.