The military in Nigeria says it has commenced a total crackdown of the operations of the Boko Haram sect in the Sambisa forest, with complete levelling of all the group’s camps, as they search for the missing Chibok girls.

Giving updates on the rescue operations two days after the video was released, the Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar, said that the three persons declared wanted by the military over the fresh video of the abducted girls were only invited for questioning.

“We only inviting them to shed light on pending issues that will support current military efforts and not to arrest them, he said, stressing that was strictly for national interest.

On the ongoing counter-terrorism operations in the northeast, the military spokesman insisted that “the Armed Forces can do it without any help.

“We are getting to where we are going. We have decimated them [Boko Haram] without any help. It is the Nigerian Armed Forces that is doing it and we will continue doing that.

“The feat that we have attained will be accelerated as the day passes by.

“We are in Sambisa now and all those Boko Haram camps have been completely destroyed,” he told reporters.

The defence spokesman also told reporters that a rehabilitation camp in Gombe State currently houses over 800 insurgents who voluntarily surrendered to the military from 2015 and will be deradicalised and rehabilitated.

“We are employing services of Imams, pastors and other government agencies to help in reforming them,” he added.

Over 200 of the girls were abducted from their school’s dormitory in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014 by members of the Boko Haram sect. (Channels TV)

•Photo shows Nigerian troops attacking a Boko Haram position inside Sambisa Forest.

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