•A child injured by the bombing
Last Sunday, December 3, Nigerians were astonished to hear the sad news of the bombing and killing of innocent villagers by the military at Tudun Biri village, in Kaduna State.
The villagers in their hundreds were said to have gathered to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, when the military struck, killing over 50 and injuring several others.
The villagers who gathered to pick their dead ones in the morning after the attack, accused the Nigerian Air Force of being responsible for the attack, saying that they used their fighter jets to carry out the bombardment, an allegation the NAF debunked immediately in a press statement.
However, shortly after the statement by the NAF, the Kaduna State government through Samuel Aruwan, issued a statement, saying that the Nigerian army was actually responsible and not the NAF.
Since the announcement by the Kaduna State government, criticisms have continued to greet the action of the Nigerian army, with many condemning and blaming the service for not carrying out due diligence before the attack.
But the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) on Tuesday, December 5, in a statement signed by the Director, Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, said that the army carried out the operations based on intelligence as captured by aerial surveillance, showing the movement of group of persons synonymous with the terrorist tactics and modus operandi in the area.
According to the statement “on December 3, at about 2200hrs and based on untoward activities by terrorists, the NA UAV detachment observed movement of terrorists at Ligarma, a terrorist-infested area of Kaduna State.
“Aerial surveillance captured movement of groups of persons synonymous with the terrorist tactics and modus operandi.
“The observed advance of the terrorists that were gathered posted a threat to key infrastructure within reach of the untoward activities.
“Accordingly, the threat was eliminated to prevent the terrorist from unleashing terror on innocent civilians. It should be noted that terrorists often deliberately embed themselves within civilian population centres in order for the civilian population to bear the consequences of their atrocities.
“Nevertheless, the Nigerian military does its best at all times to distinguish between civilians and terrorists. The military views every civilian death in the cause of operations as a tragedy. Such tragedies are needless and unwanted, that cause the armed forces to take extensive measures to avoid them.
“One such measure taken by the military is to continually give precise instructions to communities. For instance, communities are to always alert troops of their activities particularly when such a community is known to be infested with terrorists and their sympathisers. These instructions are intended at enabling the military to distinguish between friendly and untoward activities.
“The armed forces will continue to operate consistent with international laws as it always has done. It will also continue its determined and cautious progress in eradicating terrorists from our land.
“These terrorists as part of their tactics disguise themselves as civilians to perpetrate terror. Accordingly, they will continue to find innovative solutions to the challenges faced in the conduct of operations.”
However, investigations revealed that but for the timely military drone strike, the entire Southern Kaduna would have been overrun by the terrorists, who had been planning to attack the area, reports Sunday Sun.
It was gathered that the terrorists actually used the occasion of the birthday celebration of Prophet Mohammed, as a meeting point to distract the military and security agencies to carry out their attack.
A top security source hinted that the terrorists adopted the same method in Nasarawa State, but a NAF fighter jet also dislodged them.
According to the source, in the case of Nasarawa State, the terrorists who disguised as cattle rearers had planned to carry out a massacre in Benue State and were offloading the weapons they wanted to use for the massacre from a truck when the fighter jet conducted the airstrike.
In the case of Kaduna, the source pointed out that though some of the people killed were not terrorists, the majority were actually insurgents, insisting that the attack was intelligence-driven.
His words: “The military cannot just wake up and kill people that they are protecting from being killed.
“About the operation in Kaduna, there is reliable intelligence that the terrorists were planning to carry out a massacre in the Southern part of Kaduna State. If the military had not intercepted their movements, what happened in Rwanda would have been child’s play to what would have happened in the Southern part of Kaduna State”.
Another source told our correspondent that the plan of the terrorists on that fateful night of December 3, was to use the occasion to offload their weapons and proceed to the targeted villages for the massacre.
The source said that “for some time now the terrorists have been carrying out attacks, killing and kidnapping innocent villagers in the Southern part of Kaduna. But on this very day, their plan was to invade the entire area and kill anything on sight. However, unknown to them, the military and the security agencies got wind of their plan and placed surveillance on them.
“On the day of the attack, they came into the village in their very large number and because they have some villagers who work for them, nobody suspected anything. They had planned to bring out their weapons when it was time to serve refreshments to the guests to avoid suspicion.
“But unknown to them, the military had all this information and it was when they were about to offload their weapons for onward movement to the targeted villages that they were taken out.”
