By Ibrahim Muhammed
Gundabawa village was in a state of pandemonium as athe operatives of the Joint Task Force(JTF) Raided it yesterday. The village, which is located at Gezawa Local Government Area of Kano state was raided as information got to the JTF that a bomb factory was surviving there.
According to authorities, Improvised Explosive Devices(IEDs) capable of killing up to a thousand people were recovered from the factory. They said it was suspected that the devices were supposed to be used to disrupt the Eid-il-Kabir (sallah) festival, which is only few days away.
Commander of the 3rd Brigade of the Nigerian army in Kano, Brigadier Iliyasu I. Abbah and the states director of the State Security Service (SSS) Mr Bassey Eteng, addressed a joint news conference on the issue in kano yesterday.
Materials recovered according to Gene[image: Inline image 1]ral Abbah’s statement included; three primed cylinders of IEDs, one primed explosive suicide back pack, 18 empty IED cylinders, 24 detonators, small bags of fertilizer, IED timers, cortex wires and three remote control devices. Working tools of the suspected insurgents including five Motorola hand-held radios, four communicators, six alarm clocks, two cartons of nine-volt batteries and one heavy duty battery charger were also recovered by the security operatives.
Other items recovered according to the commander were one assault rifle, two AK-58 riffle magazines with 193 rounds of 5,56mm ammunition, one AK-47 rifle magazine with 107 rounds of 7.62mm (special) ammunition, bows and arrows. Abbah said in his statement that : “The JTF is aware that the terrorists are trying to establish some safe havens on the outskirts of Kano metropolis in order to resume their nefarious activities which had been curbed within the city.” According to him, the approach of the JTF troops and operatives of the SSS, made the terrorists to flee to the village.
According to Mr Bassey Eteng, the Kano state director of the SSS, IEDs recovered from the factory are capable of killing 1,000 persons. He warned residents thus: “People should beware of the latest IEDs the terrorists are producing. It is packaged in a school bag for suicide bombers. They can carry it into the Mosque, Church and even schools. This is what happened in Boston. This is a trend. It is a kind of copy-cat thing.”
Reports said that during the raid, which lasted up to about four hours, Zahairu Jibril, a resident of the village and a secondary school student was killed by the troops. Also, Five women suspected to be wives of the fleeing insurgents were arrested. In an interview, which was carried out by Daily Trust Newspaper, Zahairu’s father, Mallam Jibril Audu claimed that his son was wrongly killed, saying he was not a terrorist. But the SSS director Eteng insisted that “knowing the people too well, the person that was killed is part of them.”
