Military authorities prosecuting the war against terrorism
in the North East states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe have arrested several
soldiers, who were discovered to have leaked vital security information on the
troops’ strategies and tactics to Boko Haram that led to a series of ambush and
killing of over 30 Nigerian soldiers in recent times.
Most of the arrested soldiers serve as orderlies or
aide-de-camps, ADCs to Commanders of Troops on the field.
It was gathered that the alleged moles among the soldiers
leaked the information on the deployment of soldiers from Maimalari Barracks in
April this year to the terrorists which led to an ambush and killing of so many
soldiers of the 101 Battalion that consequently led to soldiers’ mutiny and the
shooting at the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 7 Division, Major General
Ahmed Mohammed. His armoured official car saved
his life.
The activities of these moles may have been responsible for
the recent shooting of the Nigerian Airforce Alpha Jet on September 12 which
took off from Yola airport and was reported missing until Boko Haram terrorists
said they shot it down and killed one of its pilot, which was confirmed by the
Facebook account of friends of the military.
Speaking under condition of anonymity, a reliable source
said Commanders on the field had for long wondered how information on
strategies for deployment, type of weaponry and fall back tactics easily filtered
out to the terrorists to the extent that soldiers’ movement, timing of
deployment, and routes to take, became known to Boko Haram insurgents.
“The situation became so bad that there was mutual suspicion
among fellow commanders, the Brigade headquarters and even the Division
headquarters. But at last, the moles were found out to be some of the orderlies
and aides of Commanders. What they do is that after operational briefings and
troops take off, these moles immediately pass on the information through calls.”
Asked why it was difficult to discover the traitors before
now, the source said, “Who will suspect that an orderly or the ADC of a
Commander will be the one giving out information. He does everything for the
Commander and he is with him all the time. He is the last person that would be
suspected. But thank God, they have been exposed; the truth is now known”.
Already, the source noted that a Board of Inquiry (BOI) has
been set up to carry out further investigations into the activities of the
traitors and to try to find out if there were fellow fifth columnists still
existing among the troops, after which a General Court Martial will be
constituted to try the soldiers for Criminal Conspiracy among others.
Also, Vanguard was told at the weekend that
six officers taking part in the offensive to flush out the terrorists from the
Adamawa axis recently shot themselves in parts of their bodies that were not
life threatening with a view to escape being drafted to the battle field to
confront Boko Haram terrorists.
After allegedly shooting themselves in the arm, hip, foot
and making sure that the bullets did not affect any bones in these parts of
their bodies, the officers ran to a military hospital and claimed that they
were shot by terrorists.
Medical experts attached to the hospital in Vintim, after
carrying out several checks and x-rays on the gunshot wounds, discovered that
the officers had ‘clean gunshot wounds’ which meant the injuries were 99% self
inflicted.
The Army High Command ordered that further medical tests be
carried out to be doubly sure and that the x-rays were sent to Abuja where
experts did further analysis and came out with the same results of ‘Clean
Gunshot Wounds’ .
“In one instance, an officer expertly shot at his arm from
the front and the bullet came out from the back without touching any bone
neither did it destroy any artery that would endanger the treatment of the
hand. In another instance, an officer just opened fire on his foot but made
sure no toe or dangerous part of the foot was affected,” a source said.
No comments:
Post a Comment