The Defence Headquarters on Thursday said the
claim that the Chadian military had conducted air
strikes against six terrorist camps in Nigeria was
not correct.
This is contained in a statement issued in Abuja by
the Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen. Chris
Olukolade.
Olukolade said the fact was that the Nigerian
Airforce surveillance mission identified targets
tagged: Camp 6 around Bosso town which was not
within Nigerian territory “and alerted the partners,
accordingly’’.
He said the places reported to have been struck by
the Chadians were therefore most likely to be in
Niger Republic and not Nigeria as widely reported in
the international media.
”Although the terms of the multilateral and bilateral
understanding with partners in the war against
terror allow some degree of hot pursuit against the
terrorists, the territory of Nigeria has not been
violated as insinuated in the reports circulated in
some foreign media,” he said.
Olukolade said the Nigerian military would continue
to cooperate with partners in the mission to
exterminate or contain terrorists strictly in
conformity with existing terms of the Concept of
Operation at strategic, operational or tactical levels.
He said it was however important that issues were
“accurately reported while avoiding misleading or
unnecessary sensationalism from any quarter’’.