Nigerian Army troops witness the landing of a Nigerian Air Force Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter
16/07/2012
LAGOS (AFP)
Hundreds of villagers have quit their
homes in central Nigeria ahead of a
planned army raid on suspected militant
hideouts, over recent attacks that killed
more than 100 people, the army said
Monday.
“Hundreds of them have left as of this
evening,” spokesman of the Special Task
Force (STF), army Captain Salihu Mustapha told AFP. “As a matter of fact, most of them have complied with the order to vacate these five villages,” he added. The military operation could commence “any time from then”.
Officials have accused ethnic Muslim
Fulani pastoralists of being behind a
series of attacks in central Plateau state
last weekend. In the first wave of attacks on Saturday, July 7, gunmen stormed mainly Christian villages and killed more than 80 people. Another 22 people, including two senior politicians, were killed the following day in an attack on the funeral of the previous day’s victims.
Troops from the STF had already been
deployed to several villages in Plateau
state, Mustapha said. Air Vice Marshal Dick Iruenabere told journalists in Abuja that the raid was to check what he called “acts of terrorism…The whole idea is to save the lives of the innocent.”Responding to fears that homes vacated by residents would be destroyed in the fighting, Iruenabere said small weapons would be used during the operation.
Ethnic Fulani herdsmen are a majority
Muslim group with long-standing land
rights grievances against the state’s
mainly Christian leaders. In March 2010 they launched a wave of attacks on Birom Christian villages, slaughtering more than 500 people, according to local officials.
Plateau state is in Nigeria’s so-called
“Middle Belt,” where the mainly Christian south meets the majority Muslim north, and has been the site of sectarian violence in recent years.
Fulani pastoralists are seen as “settlers”
by the Christian ethnic groups that
dominate power in Plateau state, even
though the Fulani have been there for
decades. The state capital Jos and its environs have suffered a wave of sectarian and communal clashes in recent years that has left thousands of people dead.
A meeting of Plateau state stakeholders
held on Monday in the state capital Jos to discuss the current security challenges facing the state, an official statement said.
Mr beeg,i read today on that the navy,i quote-commence the assessment of its personnel and warships to determine their efficiency in the event of any emergency on the nation’s maritime territorial environment(quote end)and this was going to be a 2 week exercise which has already been flagged off by commodore superintendent of the naval doctrine and assessment centre in lagos,my ques is are we going to know how many ocean going ships we have and how many are actually ocean going and what is their current states and how many are active??
please keep us updated.
Saw a spectacle yesterday on my way from work at Oshodi at about 7.15pm…saw a golden trail in the sky. At first i tot it was just a cosmis phenomenon but later i discovered it was not static but moving but very high up. Initially i was wondering if it was a rocket(probabbly from the Epe propulsion project) well to me dat was a remote posibility….then i tot of our Alpha jets but was i saw was a little bit bigger and i wondered if it was our F7 or maybe the trial of a new(?) acquisition?. My curiosity was the mass of the golden trail seemed to be prodused by the wings and fin at the tail(optical illusion?)…..please some body help me….beeg are u there?
Yeah I saw it also….. Like 4 flames coming out like fire from 4 engine….. At about 7pm yesterday
Wow !! @tim, thanks for your more specific description. It’s got to be something new to NAF.
Well if you guys saw four distinct jet thrusts, coming from four distinct nozzles, on a small jet fighter ? That sounds like nothing I know.
@CAMOUFLAGE1984, if what you saw had contrails coming from the wings, that could indicate that the jet engines are positioned under the wings.
For instance, the contrails that follow the B-52 bomber, would be indicative of 8 jet engines on the wings.
Contrails aka condensation trails on rear occasions can form in humid atmosphere or when there is a significant drop in air pressure. But this type lingers in the sky long after the plane has passed.
Another possibility would be from turbo prop engine planes, usually when the engine is revved up to the max just after take off, the turbo props can also produce contrails.
If this was the case, it would point to NAFs ATR maritime patrol planes, or the C-130 hercules.
But you said it was slightly larger than the alpha jet. And if the flight was near super sonic, that rules out the turbo props. Hmmm…..
All of NAF’s current jet fighters have tail pipe located jet engines, with the exception of the alpha jet, which has it’s dual engines a bit to the side.
My guess, would be that you saw an alpha jet, whose contrails were reflecting the glow of a setting sun. In a process known as condensation trail iridescence.
A jet aircraft, a little large than the alpha jet but with similar jet engine placements, would be the SU-25 frog foot. A heavy attack aircraft.
Well that was not contrail….. I know contrail if I see one…..that was an aircraft going at it’s enevelope at supersonic speed
the jaguar?
@doxiez i can say with a level of certainty dat it was not a C130 or the ATR…it looked lak a jet and i think its not the Alpha becos it did not fit into the size of wat i saw thanks anyway
Wow! I wish some body snapped a picture. The jaguar would be most interesting. As NAF has it’s best chance in decades of sourcing spare parts and engines for the rugged air craft as many users of the jaguar have recently retired their fleets.
They include, Oman, ecuador, UK, france & japan. Then the indian air force is refurbishing it’s entire fleet.
I must use the medium to state also, that some years back…..I saw an helicopter higly modified…… Fly so low…..I guess to avoid radar…..and I know this helicopter is not in the inventry of the nigerian airforce…… I grew up near the naval air station….attended it’s commisioning…..so i know a bit about nigerian helicopter…..I want to also say that…..apart from A109 the navy has other helicopters…..and not the lynx…… I think either a bell jet ranger or a fennec….
May be the navalized version of the Bo-105 ? just a guess.
No, not the b w 105
How do I upload pictures to this site? The helicopter isaw flying low at about 2004 over ogun states is the SikorskyCH-53, and higly modified, grey colour, no country marking……. And had a long studdy antenna at the front