The security Joint Task Force (JTF) in Warri, Delta State said yesterday that it had dismantled an enclave that served as hideout for alleged militant leader, Kingsley Opuye, in Abiteye area of Warri South-West Local Government Area of the state.
The JTF Commander, Brig-Gen Naven Wuyep Rimtip, while speaking to newsmen at the display of the recovered items at the task force’s headquarters at Effurun-Warri, revealed that a sizeable quantity of arms and ammunition was also recovered during the cordon-and-search operation.
He decried the spate of militant attacks on various pipelines and offshore oil facilities in recent time, and vowed that the task force would not allow militants and other criminals to exploit the ongoing re-structuring process in the special intervention security agencies in the Niger-Delta.
The recovered items include “two General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG), two FN rifles and an AK-47 rifle loaded with two cello-taped magazines containing 60 rounds of 7.62mm special ammunition.
Also recovered were five Dane guns; two 9mm rounds of ammunition; 13 cartridges, two camouflage trousers and five camouflage face caps; one Mobile Police pullover; 32 pumping machines; one welding machine; and, one speed boat.”
The task force spokesman, Col Rabe Abubakar, further explained that they owed the success of the Abiteye operation at the militant camp to “the superior fire-power of the JTF troops, as the militants sooner bowed and fled the camp at the sight of our` advancing troops.” He said he was confident that the “ongoing offensive by the JTF on the militants’ camps in Delta and Bayelsa states will go a long way in curbing the scourge of militancy in the oil-rich region.
This proactive stance would deter unscrupulous persons from attempting to use the ongoing restructuring of the Task Force to commit nefarious acts inimical to the development of the Niger-Delta.”
Mar212009