…As Russian TV lists nuclear targets in U.S.***
The Nigerian Air Force says its Air Task Force (ATF) of
Operation LAFIYA DOLE has neutralised some Islamic State of West Africa
Province (ISWAP) fighters at Kolloram in northern Borno.
NAF’s Director of Public Relations and Information, Air
Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, stated this in a statement on Monday in Abuja.
Daramola said the insurgents were neutralised as they
assembled for a meeting at their hideout in Kolloram on the fringes of Lake
Chad in the Northern part of Borno.
”The operation was conducted on Feb. 24, following credible
intelligence reports indicating that some of the ISWAP leaders and fighters had
assembled for a meeting in a group of buildings at the centre of the settlement.
”A Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Intelligence Surveillance and
Reconnaissance (ISR) platform, which was deployed for confirmatory
surveillance, observed the presence of the terrorists at the location.
“Subsequently, it called for two Alpha Jet aircrafts to
attack the group of buildings.
”Bombs from the first Aplha Jet hit the desired mean point
of impact causing damage to the building and neutralising some of the
terrorists,” he said.
The spokesman said some of the surviving fighters, who
formed the outer security cordon of the meeting venue, were seen engaging the
NAF aircraft with Anti-Aircraft (AA) and small arms fire,” he said.
Daramola said that the attack aircraft continued to engage
the target area with bombs and rockets in several passes and mopped up the
terrorists who survived the initial strikes.
Daramola said that the NAF, operating in concert with
surface forces, would sustain its efforts to completely destroy all remnants of
the terrorists in the North-East.
In the meantime, Russian state television has listed U.S.
military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike.
The television station also said that a hypersonic missile
Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.
The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential
retreat in Camp David, Maryland.
The report, unusual even by the standards of Russian
state TV, was broadcast on Sunday evening.
It came on air days after President Vladimir Putin said
Moscow was militarily ready for a “Cuban Missile”-style crisis if the U. S
wanted one.
In the Sunday evening broadcast, Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter
of Russia’s main weekly TV news show ‘Vesti Nedeli’, showed a map of the U. S.
In that map, he identified several targets he said
Moscow would want to hit in the event of a nuclear war.
The targets, which Kiselyov described as U.S. presidential
or military command centres, also included Fort Ritchie, a military training
centre in Maryland closed in 1998, McClellan, a U.S. Air Force base in
California closed in 2001, and Jim Creek, a naval communications base in
Washington State.
Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, said the “Tsirkon”
(‘Zircon’) hypersonic missile that Russia was developing could hit the targets
in less than five minutes if launched from Russian submarines.
Hypersonic flight is generally taken to mean traveling
through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound.
“For now, we are not threatening anyone, but if such a
deployment takes place, our response will be instant,” he said.
Kiselyov is one of the main conduits of state television’s
strongly anti-American tone, once saying Moscow could turn the U. S. into
radioactive ash.
Asked to comment on Kiselyov’s report, the Kremlin said on
Monday it did not interfere in state TV’s editorial policy.
Tension had been rising over Russian fears that
the U.S. might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a
Cold War-era arms-control treaty unravels.
Putin has said Russia would be forced to respond by placing
hypersonic nuclear missiles on submarines near U.S. waters.
The U.S says it has no immediate plans to deploy such
missiles in Europe, and has dismissed Putin’s warnings as disingenuous
propaganda.
It does not currently have ground-based intermediate-range
nuclear missiles that it could place in Europe.
However, its decision to quit the 1987 Intermediate-range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty over an alleged Russian violation, something Moscow
denies, has freed it to start developing and deploying such missiles.
Putin has said Russia does not want a new arms race, but has
also dialled up his military rhetoric.
Some analysts have seen his approach as a tactic to try to
re-engage the U.S. in talks about the strategic balance between the two powers,
something Moscow has long pushed for, with mixed results.
