Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, has said inter-agency collaboration helped security agencies to foil a terror attack in the country recently.

The COAS, who stated that the Joint Task Force thwarted the planned attack, did not, however, elaborate on the incident.

Speaking during a visit to the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, at Force Headquarters, Abuja, on Thursday, Ihejirika linked the successful operations against terrorists to the collaboration among security agencies in the country.

He said, “Within the last one week, we have recovered nothing less than 30 assorted weapons and we have recovered money  hidden in the engine  compartment of vehicles by these terrorists.

“We have recovered vehicles prepared for bombing and attacks. So I want to tell you that the military and police are very professional.

“Gone are the days when we take actions without calculating their consequences. Certain terrorists have also been allowed to escape just because the collateral damage was considered unacceptable.”

On allegations of extrajudicial killings levelled against security personnel, the Army chief said no responsible person would tolerate the killing of innocent  citizens, adding that the primary responsibility of the Army was to protect the citizens.

He said, “If you go to any of our training schools, you will confirm that this is true. Perhaps you may not be aware of the recent refutal through various press releases one by the Joint Task Force in Maiduguri and another by the department of public relations units of the Nigerian Defence Headquaters and the  Army Headquarters.

“What we do as soon as we receive such allegations is to quickly carry out an investigation. A very recent case is allegation by the Amnesty International and the Reuters video clips in circulation. On careful examination of tape, we discovered that the same video was shown sometime in 2009.

“In the video clip, you have one man in babaringa and other civilians there directing those in uniform on what to do.

“It was also discovered that a picture taken from that same video clip was used by Amnesty International, several weeks earlier as the cover page of their report.”

Posted by admin on Nov 22 2012. Filed under Armed Forces, Latest Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry