Don’t panic, US alert on ISIS invasion not new, Military tells Nigerians

The Nigerian Military has said the alarm raised by the United States on plot by the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda terrorists group to take over parts of Nigeria is not new to the armed forces, but assured Nigerians that security agencies are ontop of the situation.

The commander of the US special operations command, Africa, Dagvin Anderson, had warned that Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) is silently taking over North West Nigeria and also expanding to other parts of West Africa.

John Enenche, Coordinator Defence Media Operations (DMO), while briefing journalists on Thursday in Abuja, said the US only succeeded in stating the obvious, but did not specify what actions Nigeria can take to tame the influx of the foreign terrorists. He said the warning is 10 years old.

Enenche however described the warning as a wake up call.

“Our attention was being drawn to the fact that terrorists from other zones are coming here. There is no doubt that we already have that challenge as far back as when the war in Libya was declared, and even in Iraq.

“Have we not captured foreigners among the people that have been terrorizing us in this country. Recently we captured some in Niger state from our neigboring country, where are they coming from? Why do we have ISAWP here now,was ISWAP indigenous to Nigeria, No!

“It’s just like a wake up call, which is readily welcome, all the security agencies have that at the back of their plan and they factor it in implementation.

“The general public should not be afraid of that at all. It’s not a new thing, it’s already in our schedule of activity”, the Coordinator said.

Earlier, Enenche while giving update on activities of the armed forces, said troops  of Operations Hadarin Daji, Katsina, Accord And Sahel Sanity, have continued to dominate the North West area with clearance patrols, aggressive fighting patrols, raids, ambushes, confidence-building patrols and several air bombardments of identified bandits’ locations and hideouts.

“These operations also resulted in the rescue of kidnapped victims, recovery of rustled livestock, arrest of suspected armed bandits informants and collaborators in addition to the recoveries of large cache of arms and ammunition, among others”, he said.

In the South South zone, Enenche said Operation Delta Safe successfully discovered and deactivated 25 illegal refining sites in Rivers, Cross Rivers and Akwa Ibom States.

He added that a total of 342, 000, 00 litres of product suspected to be illegally refined AGO were impounded.

He also informed that the Nigerian Navy Ship Delta led a peace and reconciliation meeting with the stakeholders of Gbaramatu Kingdom of Warri South LGA of Delta State, following recent threats to disrupt oil and gas infrastructure by the people of Gbaramatu Kingdom.