Insurgency: How Regional Alliance, Drones, Deployment of Generals Turned the Tide

The Nigerian military and intelligence sources have revealed how change of battle plans, regional alliance, and especially the acquisition of the right weapons have helped to change the battle situation in the ongoing counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency offensive against the Boko Haram terrorists.

Since the latest arrangements, the terrorists have lost strategic towns including Mongonu, Marte, Gamboru Ngala, Dikwa and other surrounding communities, all thanks to the game-changing weapons and arrangements, THISDAY gathered.

In the same vein, THISDAY has also reported unofficially, the liberation of Baga and eventually Bama, with mop-up operations to clear the remnants of the terrorists while new offensive have opened in Sambisa forest and Gwoza.

Speaking to THISDAY, an intelligence source from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), cited two of the major game-changing factors that turned the tide of the battle to include the regional agreement with the countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission to destroy Boko Haram safe havens within their contiguous boundaries as well as the stockpile of new sophisticated weapons like drones, battle tanks, attack helicopters and night vision technology.

Actually, the source noted, a contentious question people ask border on the difference the new efforts could make given that the insurgency problem had remained intractable for the past two to six years.

According to the source, the answer simply hinged on the dearth of agreement or cooperation with the neighbouring countries, which previously made even the hot pursuit arrangement unworkable.

s"The first thing is the sincerity and commitment of our neighbouring countries to the task of eliminating the terrorists," the source said.

Two, the source added, for the first time, the Nigerian military has large stockpile of all armaments, which were not delivered in batches but brought at once with bigger aircraft.

The source said: "They brought some of these gamechanging tanks and armoured vehicles. The APCs, T-72 battle tanks, T55 armoured tanks with mine-sweeping capabilities, which are used in Baga and currently in Sambisa and Gwoza and the attack helicopters, especially the Cobra equipped with night vision capabilities, have turned the tide against Boko Haram.

"There are more use of drones but we don't want to name all of them for security reasons because Americans, who don't want us to have these weapons, may have a different motive. (You may recall) when one of the drones was sighted in Adamawa, the Americans were said to be angry, asking how we were able to secure them."

"The beauty of it is that these drones are doing very well and have enhanced our capacity and battle success. We are now having more drones.