Air interdictions conducted by Multi National Joint task Force (MNJTF) and national Air Task Forces successfully attacked and killed several ISWAP fighters and knocked out equipment on Saturday, August 30, 2019 as they prepared to launch an offensive on troops location.

Colonel Timothy Antigha, MNJTF Chief of Military Public Information, disclosed this in a statement issued this morning in N’Djamena - Chad.

“Battle damage assessment has indicated that the air interdiction had a devastating impact, as pockets of ISWAP build up and logistics hidden under trees in Tumbum Rego have been in ruined,” he said in the statement made available to News Express by e-mail.

In a related development, ISWAP assets in Mallam Zuberu and Alagarno were also targeted and neutralized. Similarly, improvised explosive devices planted by ISWAP operatives in Layi Koura area of Nguigmi in Niger Republic was discovered and defused by troops,” the statement further said.

Tumbum Rego is a group of islands in Chad while Mallam Zuberu and Alagarno are in Nigeria’s northernmost fringes.

Col. Antigha recalled that “in the past couple of weeks, ISWAP suicide bombers struck in Kaiga - Kindjiria; a rural community in the Republic of Chad as well as Gubio in Borno State, in an effort by ISWAP to revamp its dream of establishing a caliphate in parts of Northern Nigeria and other areas of the Lake Chad Basin.”

He noted that “this blow by the MNJTF will further plunge the leadership and followership of ISWAP into more despair.”