Troops of Operation Whirl Stroke have arrested two suspected armed bandits in Doma Local Government Area (LGA) of Nasarawa State.

The Acting Director of Defence Information at the Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, disclosed this in a statement on Friday.

The suspects were said to have been arrested during a raid on bandits’ hideout in Abuja Ogor, a local settlement in Doma.

Two AK 47 rifles, three magazines and 126 rounds of ammunition were recovered from the suspect following the operation.

In a similar operation, troops of Sector 3 of Operation Whirl Stroke deployed at Ondori in the same location raided a suspected militia hideout and recovered two AK 47 rifles with two empty magazines, one clarion 5.56 Israeli assault rifle mounted with a magazine.

The troops also conducted a raid on a suspected armed bandits camp at Dogo Gawa, a border community between Takum in Taraba State and Katsina-Ala in Benue State.

A shootout ensued in the process while the bandits who were overpowered by the soldiers fled, abandoning their camp.

One locally made rifle, one laptop, two cellphones, sim cards, ATM cards, and N400,000 were recovered while the troops subsequently destroyed the camp.

In the southern part of the country, the DHQ spokesman said troops of 222 Battalion on routine patrol arrested two suspected pipeline vandals along the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) pipeline in Isoko South LGA of Delta State.

“The suspects were arrested along with a tanker truck and eight motorcycles while attempting to vandalise a petroleum pipeline,” he said.

Similarly, troops of Operation Delta Safe conducted strings of operations to combat illegal bunkering and other related crimes in the Niger Delta region.

During the operations, Colonel Onyeama said troops of Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) DELTA and Sector 1 Operation Delta Safe uncovered and destroyed an illegal refining camp with 18 ovens, 18 coolers, 39 waste pits, while on patrol at Iwhrekreka community in Ugheli LGA of Delta.

He revealed that other items recovered included 26 surface tanks and five pits cumulatively filled with about 750,000 litres of suspected stolen crude oil.

“Some of the suspects arrested during the coordinated operations have been handed over to relevant prosecuting security agencies, while others are still undergoing preliminary investigation,” the DHQ spokesman said.

•Sourced from a Channels TV report

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