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The Nigerian Army has urged the public to disregard the claims by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) that it had captured military personnel and equipment in Lake Chad region.
In a statement yesterday in Maiduguri, Borno State, spokesman of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), Col. Timothy Antigha, said the video where the terrorists made the ‘propaganda’ was spurious.
He stated that the claims were substantially debatable, while a few of them were information already in the public domain.
According to him, the task force has referenced a couple of ISWAP attacks on troops’ locations at Metele and Baga between December and January.
He said: “There were causalities on personnel, while others were missing in action.
“A sizable number of the equipment shown in the video has since been recovered or destroyed in situ.”
Antigha stated that the operation was committed to the rescue of all missing MNJTF troops.
Besides “sheer misinformation and propaganda”, he maintained that the ISWAP video did not introduce any new dimension in the Lake Chad region military operations, adding that the ‘misinformation’ was aimed at causing “panic and manipulation” of public opinion on Boko Haram fight in Lake Chad Basin.
