Insurgents use cows, camels to import arms –Military

 

The military has said that Boko Haram insurgents imported arms into the country on the backs of cows and camels.

The insurgents also used Keke NAPEP, old model pick-up vans and jeeps to bring in arms with security agents not being the wiser, the military said.

It identified these unusual methods of brining in arms and the influx of illegal aliens and Improvised Explosive Device materials through the country’s porous borders as the challenges confronting the fight against terrorism.

This is contained in the current special edition of the Nigerian Defence Magazine’, a publication of the Defence Headquarters, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

The magazine said that most of the small arms came to the Boko Haram insurgents through Libyan and Malian rebels on the back of camels and donkeys, desperate to exchange arms for money.

“This has added to the overwhelming challenge of the influx of illegal aliens, arms, ammunition and sophisticated IED materials into the country, and efficient and effective fight against terrorism,’’ it said.

It also said that the waterways and sea ports in the southern zone provided another means through which those arms were trafficked to the country, via the ships, speed boats and canoes through the creeks.

It described as “disheartening and unfortunate’’ the means by which “merchants of death’’ (insurgents) trafficked small weapons to beat security agencies at the borders.

“The fact that the weapons are small, light and collapsible makes them easy to be concealed and moved on camels and donkeys’ back in specially crafted skin or thatched bags,’’ it said, stressing that some merchants of cows and grains in the region hid the arms and ammunition in empty fuel tankers, under vehicle engines and bags of grains and smuggled them in.

“The grains are transported in large number via trucks, trailers, lorries and old model pick-up vans and jeeps with little attention given to them by security agents.

“The use of tricycles (Keke NAPEP), camels, donkeys and cows moving in flocks to deceive, hide and conveniently traffic arms in some parts of the North are ways hitherto unknown,.’’

It, however, said that the Joint Task Force in the region had since uncovered those means and had taken measures to contain them.

The magazine called for adequate deployment of personnel and technology in the borders to man, monitor and check the movement of illegal persons, goods and arms into the country.

“Security agencies at the borders and seaports have complained of the porosity of the nation’s border and water ways. The problem of porous borders is compounded by inadequate personnel, patrol vehicles, surveillance helicopter and equipment.

“Consequently, most of the borders are leaky and this makes effective control of intruders, smugglers