Troops and Paanhard VBL M11 scout car of the STF on urban CTCOIN operations on the Jos Plateau
NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
THERE were strong indications, on Monday, that the group of terrorists that killed two lawmakers along with others on Sunday came from Niger Republic and Chad and was yet to be dislodged by security agencies. The group is said to still be hiding in the hills around Barkin-Ladi and Riyom local government areas of Plateau State.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that after the Fulani terrorists group from neighbouring Chad and Niger Republic encounter with the men of the Special Task Force on Saturday and the attack that led to the death of Senator Gyang Dantong and Honourable Gyang Fulani, the terrorists simply retired into the surrounding hills.
A cross section of people residing in the two troubled local government areas, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune, said after the unfortunate incident that led to the death of the lawmakers on Sunday, sporadic gunshots were heard throughout the night, especially from Rahol Mashe hills where they launched the Sunday attack.
A source close to the security agencies in the state disclosed that no fewer than 300 Fulani mercenaries from Chad and Niger were currently hibernating in various hills around the two council areas and had sacked all the villages at the base
of the hills and taken over their houses.
The source further added that the STF had rolled out armoured vehicles to all the affected parts of the local government might launch an attack on the hideout of the mercenaries any moment from now….
These mutineers are nothing but a pain in the butts…
Well, everything which we said yesterday about the inaccessibility of these highlands and the fact that they are being used to being to prey on the the villagers in these remote areas has since been borne out.
It has little to do with the troops and cops and everything to do with the non-provision of aerial surveillance assets with which to observe movements in the high ground. If it was all about the STF personnel and their competence, the planned and more readily accessible metropolitan area that is Jos, barring flare-ups after suicide VBIED attacks on Sundays, would not enjoy the semblance of peace which prevails there.
When we say stuff here, it is predicated on REAL awareness about the places involved being familiar as it were with over three-quarters of Nigeria’s territorial expanse and states.
Stay with Beegeagle’s Blog for SPOT-ON analysis.
READ
http://beegeagle.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/senator-gyang-dantongplateau-north-major-leader-of-the-plateau-state-house-of-assembly-killed-by-fulani-ethnic-militiamen/
I saw footage from the theatre tonight on NTA News – a rocky and typically inaccessible highland settlement with lush temperate greenery modified by altitude.
They need many more helicopters in there for emergency response. The decommissioned German Bo-105s come to mind again. It is not everywhere that 4WD trucks can reach and on foot, the damage would have been done before troops and cops arrive.
In many parts of Plateau, Adamawa, Taraba and some parts of Borno, Gombe and Bauchi, you can only access these highland settlements after trekking for six or more hours. That is one reason why we always have delayed poll results in some of these states and in the Niger Delta – remoteness and inaccessibility is it.
I saw a good number of 4WDs and APCs mostly ATS and MOPOL cops geared up for battle but for as long as it is the Jos Plateau, which extends into parts of Bauchi and Kaduna states, there are bound to be hundreds of hamelts and villages nestled in the highlands and with rocks and boulders lining the route to the top. So the STF need aerial penetrative abilities.
This issue of inaccessibility of highland settlements takes on a new meaning in even more mountainous Adamawa and Taraba states. It is a good thing that these orgies of killing are not taking place there. The casualty figures would have been astonishing.
Remember when BH tried to establish a foothold in the southern Borno stretch of the extant volcanic Mandara Mts straddling the Nigeria-Cameroon border. The NAF played a major role in that battle.
http://beegeagle.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/nigerian-army-v-islamist-militants-in-the-mandara-mts-sept-2004/
Air support on the Jos Plateau is wholly inadequate. The FG need to make provisions and quit bemoaning insecurity while hiding behind competing demands. The challenge of the times is PHYSICAL SECURITY. All else is of secondary importance.
The Army/Air Force need these – MBB Bo-105s (latest variants produced in the 1990s)
The Navy need this navalised variant.
The Germans are downsizing their military and that has already freed up about 100 units of MBB Bo-105 armed helicopters. I doubt that these would cost more than $500k apiece and excellent German maintenance would ensure that we get maximum value for money. We should reach for 36 units of these as cost-effective options for tactical operations. $20m should fetch those and Eurocopter can assist with anything we need to operate them for another decade.
We need to trash any idea of getting into any convoluted upgrades and refurbishment of our grounded fleet of MBB Bo-105s. Scrap them for spares. That is the smartest thing to do now.
Then hand over twenty units to the NAF for observation and light attack, eight units to the NA to shore up the numbers since I expect the new Army Aviation to get at least a squadron of Eurocopter AS 555 Fennec and six Harbin Z-9WA and finally, hand over eight units to the NN for anti-piracy interdiction – with one unit stationed at each of the FOBs Badagry, Igbokoda, Formoso, Escravos, Ibaka and Bonny so that the full-fledged naval air stations can specialize in Agusta A109e Power helicopters.
ELSEWHERE, Beegeagle wrote:
The core conflict areas encompass all of Plateau Central and Plateau North..not just metropolitan Jos where there are roads.
Most of the outrages now take place in highland communities which are mostly accessible only by bikes and on foot. These Fulani herdsmen are not encamped in Jos with their herds. That can only be in the countryside and with the glut of crater ‘lakes’ and lush temperate vegetation which attract these unruly herdsmen to the Plateau is caused by orographic rain which takes place in the highlands. It follows that most of these attacks are taking place in highland villages and hamlets were access is difficult.
Unless and until situational awareness and the movement of herdsmen is closely monitored, using helicopters, in the manner of a COIN unit tracking guerrillas, it might be difficult to assert effective control over these inaccessible and isolated places. It is in places such as these where such large-scale movements are possible.
Once upon a time, the Jos crisis was a highly militarized ethnoreligious conflict. Since Xmas 2010, BH terrorists have joined the fray to make it a double header of security challenges – terrorism/insurgency and ethnoreligious conflict.
Barring the occasional IED attack in metropolitan Jos, the city is largely stable. But Jos metropolis only represents a quarter of the conflict zone and whereas the the people of Jos are mostly settled in a planned and accessible urban area, the peoples of the outlying communities frequently live in open, isolated and inaccessible highland villages and hamlets which are laid open to attacks.
Over miles and miles of highland territory accessible by footpaths and nestled between rocky outcrops and verdant pastures, the homers and the interloping herdsmen live side by side in their own world, removed from the trappings of urban life.
After dark, it is possible for hundreds of malevolent fellows to trek through hill tracks and descend on isolated communities. They can even finish up their killing sprees and be left with enough time to cook and eat the food of their victims.
These days, we hear about coastal radars stations tracking and spotting illegal bunkering ships in the wilderness of the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea. That is why they are now intercepting bunkerers.
By the same token, situational awareness made possibly by helicopter surveillance would make it possible to track the movements of these ethnic militiamen in the highlands and to act on intelligence/respond to emergencies swiftly.
Nothing stops STF helicopter crews from shadowing suspicious herdsmen and actually descending to search them for weapons or direct them towards areas with access roads where combined military/ATS/MOPOL teams can easily overwhelm them with numbers.
Be it known that even so, pairs and triads of security operatives have been dispersed across the conflict zones and they collaborate with village vigilante groups which engage in overnight watchkeeping but depending the size of the invading militia, they might only have enough time to send out a SOS message to their base camps and units.
Long and short, they need air assets aplenty.
Okay, the STF Commander Gen Henry Ayoola was on NTA News this evening and he said that the onslaught which caused the legislators to slip into insconsciousness was carried out by attackers who were embedded in fixed positions in the high ground overlooking the burial site.
The need for aerial surveillance buttressed.
FLASHBACK:
http://beegeagle.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/nigeria-needs-a-dedicated-border-security-force/
NIGERIA NEEDS A DEDICATED BORDER SECURITY FORCE.
As a result of the porosity of our borders
and the accomodating nature of
Nigerians, nationals from sister African
republics have frequently been used as
mercenaries in conflicts around Northern Nigeria.
Some rebellions and insurgencies have been led by foreigners. Mohammed Marwa aka Maitatsine, who led a devastating islamist uprising in Kano in 1980 was a Cameroonian national from Maroua in that sister country’s Far North. An itinerant preacher who first settled in Kano in 1945, he was reportedly deported to his native land in the early 1960s by the Sir Ahmadu Bello regional government of Northern Nigeria on account of his unorthodox and dangerous teaching.
After the overthrow of the Bello regime in 1966, Maitatsine found his way back to Kano. When he launched his insurgency in 1980, he had resident citizens of Niger, Mali, Chad and Cameroon enlisted in his group.
The initial attacks by the Hausa-Fulani
during the 2004 Yelwa-Shendam crisis in Plateau State similarly had Chadian and Nigerien mercenaries in tow.
During the 2009 Boko Haram insurgency
across NE Nigeria, it came out that the
deputy leader and chief logistician of the movement was an ethnic Kanuri from Diffa in Niger Republic. Boko Haram insurgents had many Chadians and Nigerien nationals fighting among their ranks.
Shortly after the Boko Haram insurgency
was put down by the Nigerian Army in
August 2009, an isolationist group of
muslims known as Dar Ul Islam and
clustered around the strategically located crossroads town of Mokwa in Central Nigeria similarly got relieved of its fundamentalist overload.
The leader of the Dar Ul Islam sect Amrul Bashir Abdullahi turned out to be a Sudanese national with hundreds of Cameroonians,Chadians, Nigeriens and Malians living and working in their midst.
Last January, nationals of Niger republic were caught participating in the Jos crisis. According to the very few survivors of the recent (March 2009) attacks on the Plateau and going by what the state
government officials have been saying,
Chadian and Nigerien nationals have
AGAIN been involved albeit as mercenaries in the reprisal attacks on the Plateau.
Can someone tell us IF Nigeria now
officially a stateless zone or it has
become anathema to check who is going in and out of the country?
This country is so ridiculously free that
even water hawkers and cobblers from
Niger and commercial motorcyclist from
Cameroon who squat in my
neighbourhood have told me that Nigeria is the only country around these parts where one can travel from Lagos to Katsina (over 1,300km) and Lagos to
Gamboru-Ngala in Borno state(1,800km, 3 days journey by trailer) without getting checked EVEN ONCE or being asked for ID papers by security officers on the routes of journey.
This is a TRULY FREE society, they ALWAYS tell me. They should know
because they make these hops regularly
to and from their home countries. Yes,
these are some of those guys who you see clustered at the backs of trailers and lorries who I am talking about here.
Comparatively, when they arrive at their
own countries and are found to have no
ID papers they are given temporary
documents (laissez passez, they call it)
which expire within 24 hours of issuance and which must be renewed IMMEDIATELY at their home local councils.
What could possibly explain the curious
tendency for Cameroonian, Chadian,
Malian, Nigerien and Sudanese muslims
to nurse no dreams of an ideal muslim
society until they arrive in Nigeria?
Nigeria has become a liberal watering hole of choice for radical and extremist
religious ferment, even as neither
Jerusalem nor Mecca is anywhere around here.
We need to keep an eye on who and what comes through our Sahelian and Saharan land borders upcountry where there are massive overland crossings BUT without stifling the spirit of African
brotherhood.
For example, West Africa’s largest cattle market is in Mubi, Adamawa state. There, trucks come in from even the Central African Republic to haul kolanuts. Do we know what they bring into the country? We do live in an anarchical
neighbourhood, even as there is a
proliferation of arms as a result of
ongoing conflicts in Niger, the CAR
(400-500 miles from our frontier towns
such as Mubi), Darfur (which from Gamboru-Ngala borderpost in Borno is
scarcely the same distance as a road trip
between Lagos and Kano) and nextdoor
Chad.
Recent developments which impinge on
Nigeria’s national security interests have long since borne out my conviction that the Northern Outback is the problem which should be more tightly monitored.
Eventhough the diplomatic maxim states that “the safest borders are undefended borders”, the place needs to be more closely monitored because that zone has traditionally been a harbinger of subversion since 1980. Indeed, the Nigerien, Malian and Chadian
mercenaries of the Maitatsine era came
from there.
In Kano ALONE, Maitatsine fanatics OFFICIALLY claimed 4,177 lives(unofficial humanitarian agency body counts said over 10,000 lives) before their rebellion was put down. That was December 20-31, 1980. Where do today’s Chadian mercenaries come in from this time? Where do the Nigerien mercenaries come from? Is this their first appearance? They were used in
the Tiv-Jukun, Yelwa-Shendam and Jos
conflicts. Do they cross that Northern Outback or not?
There are armed conflicts going on in the open Saharan wastelands of Chad and Niger, is it any wonder that Boko Haram could lay hands on the kind of weaponry which they used? The solution lies in maintaining a tight rein on Nigeria’s porous Northern Outback…
PERIOD!!
If you ask me, the Nigerian FG should
finally summon the courage to put in
place its own paramilitary border security force, along the lines of what the Indians,Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have. Look how useful the paramilitary Pakistani Frontier Corps have been in this fight against crossborder malfeasance and militants!
It is not mandatory that Nigeria only and forever stick to institutions which were handed down by the colonialists. We need to do that which is needful and is necessary given our history and geography as a nation
Who is watching over these places, we ask again? In Nigeria, this Nigeria it is a
veritable FREE-FOR-ALL. The saga continues…
Yeah Beeg, what disheartens me, is that after we discus these security vulnerabilities, at times months ahead of time, the dreaded event still comes to pass as predicted SANS OUR RECOMMENDED PREVENTATIVE MEASURE.
We are not boasting, for this is NOT rocket science. We are bloggers from across the globe that include those with military experience and others that are KEEN OBSERVERS OF GLOBAL MILITARY TRENDS.
Most of all, the bulk of those that opine here, do so, out of the love of country.
I tell you what bothers me
1) When the rebellion is put down these fellow chadanians / nigeriens/ malians are not prosecuted
2) Not one of these NATIONAL ARE MADE AN EXAMPLE OF
3) The concept that FREEDOM IS FREE IT IS NOT
4) Can a Nigerian GO TO CHAD START A REBELLION AND EXPECT TO BE DEPORTED?
These foreign mercenaries should all be dealt with together with their Nigerian collaborators right at the hills there.
The STF should not show mercy to these murderers,let those who kill by the sword also should die by the sword and go to HELL!
I have no doubt that the NA shall be mounting a highland offensive in no time. The baggers shall be dislodged. NA Infantry train in CTCOIN operations, Jungle, Desert, Mountain, Amphibious and Airborne warfare. I trust.
FLASHBACK
http://beegeagle.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/nigerian-army-v-islamist-militants-in-the-mandara-mts-sept-2004/
GEN.BEEGS i luv ur passion for counter insurgencies ops but let me give a hint ok,why don’t the military send in heat seeking infrared drone with thermal imaging that can pin point enemy position and send strike helis or artillery direct towards the their hideout sending in men is not wise due to terrain and enemies digging in.secondly the military should send in scout penetration teams(like my unit)and direct artillery strikes,i wish i could join naija military
The STF should identify where these bastard are hiding on the hills,then call in air support from the NAF Mi-24/35 attack helicopters as well as the F-7NI fighters to bombard these idiots to enternal damnation.
Oh God, help us all,and bless Nigeria!
Situations like these is why NAPALM was created to burn and fry every damn thing seen and unseen. I hope we have it in our inventory and ready to use it!
How can these kind of thing be allowed to happen in our country again?How come the STF where not patrolling the area where the mass burial took place?How did these guys know that the senator and the house of assembly member were their or were going to come before the ambush was carried out?
Some one needs to answer these question urgently?
Time to modify the Rhodesian fire force tactics, drop troops on the high ground and ambush all the choke points, platoon sized patrols move through the hills clearing out the insurgents, with AH on call and a ready flying platoon sized reserve.
Yep, the SADF and subsequently, the executive outcomes(EO) PMC outfit specialized in such tactics. Which they repeated in their ops in sierra leone and angola.
Well, Senator Victor Lar(PDP,Plateau State) just hit the nail on the head while speaking to the National Assembly correspondent of the NTA.
Pointing to the sky tp simulate a hovering airframe, he said “the time has come to give the Defence Minister or the Security Adviser appropriate instructions. The people know their huts are..(raising his hand to replicate a bird’s eye view), you can see them from above”
Those who should know, KNOW. The ongoing CTCOIN operations call for rotary wing assets. For a small outlay($20m) we can scramble 36 units of Bo-105s for operations on the Jos Plateau, in the Far North and in the Niger Delta/Gulf of Guinea and they are in such good shape that they can be held on to for another seven years, by which time the investment would have been more than justified.
The FG need to reach out for these air assets without further delay. ONLY the people entrusted with these matters appear not to know what to do.
Nigeria we hail thee.
You know, Benjy, the Agusta A109 LUH choppers can be fitted with .50 calibre weapons and 68mm rockets. That is more than enough to bring a blanket of fire on these chaps whereever they are.
Yesterday, I did see some troops and a MOPOL chap underaking foot patrols in Jos. It is in the outlying highlands where the problem really lies – Bukuru all the way past the Ta Hoss-Riyom axis where you have the highest railway crossing in West Africa(1,352m above sea level)and on to Forest Station.
These guys have no reason to leave there – water in crater lakes and plunge pools, lush greenery, tsetse fly-free environs, temperate weather.
Did you see the photo of a typical mixed farming area which we splashed elsewhere?
good guerilla country from the sounds of it.
Secure the high ground, patrol from there and reinforce from the air, basic tactics.
Not fun for the biys who have to sweat up the hills but it will overwhelm the enemy
Here are images from the theatre
(Panoramio photo)
(Localyte photo)
(Bestpicturesof Photo)
(Robert Moore photo)
1) have the tubo prop COLLECT IMAGES ABOVE
2) SECURE THE HIGH ground by dropping troops at night int the area by parachute not the noisy helios use the g222 or one of the doriners
Beeg, in vietnam, the US tried one para drop operation, before deciding, that due to terrain and the frequent need to move troops about the battle space, that helicopter mobile troop insertion was the way to go.
They termed this maneuver, vertical envelopment. As opposed to horizontally enveloping the enemy by truck or foot patrols.
There are 2 places you kind of want to avoid parachuting into, mountains and forests, you have both in this case, Helicopters all the way. Who cares if they hear? The whole point it is to force them react. The high ground is vital ground so they either have to come and fight for it or fall back, if they come to fight you destroy them with firepower, if they try to escape they run into the stopper groups. 3rd option is they go firm and wait for you to clear them out, again you need to high ground to dominate call in fires and air strikes. Nice little op, but horrible terrain, imagine going up that with body armour and kit
MY MAN, NA needs your expertise asap. I am sure the queen would understand.
OGA F.M
Are you listening ? you know ( i dey CAUSE wahala) how oga doziex loves those “private consultants” err…. mercs. methinks he is on a recruting mission
Jesus wil take da battle 4 us .