Boko Haram Fights With Libyan Weapons – Army

The military troops deployed to flush out Boko Haram insurgents from Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States after the declaration of a state of emergency in the three states by President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, encountered intense resistance from the sect members who were armed with sophisticated weapons which the army says came from Libya. A senior military official said of London that “they (Islamist militants) have been putting up fierce resistance and they are very, very well-armed with weapons from Libya.” He said most of the militants who have waged a bloody four-year battle to create an Islamist state in the country had scattered across the semi-desert borders. Officers of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF), patrolling in Maiduguri in a sweeping offensive against Boko Haram, renewed military campaign, including aerial bombardments of the insurgents training camps and this has led to the capture of almost 200 militants and the death of dozens in a week, according to the military. In one raid, a helicopter gunship was hit by anti-aircraft and anti-tank fire, a military source said. However, a resident of the besieged states said: “It’s only by the goodwill of soldiers and by virtue of my position that I was able to leave the city. All the entry points to and from Maiduguri are blocked by the military but they let me through.” In Maiduguri, where militants are deeply enmeshed in the population, soldiers carrying out house-to-house searches after placing a 24-hour curfew in some neighbourhoods discovered stockpiles of weapons including rocket-propelled grenades, a defence spokesperson said.
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