As Insurgent Supplies Run Out, Child Combatants Sent to Harvest Armories
By Suleman Ayuba
(Yobe /Borno State)— Nigerian troops have foiled coordinated large-scale assaults by Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists on military positions in Bitta, Borno State, and the North East Theater Training School (NETTS) in Buni Yadi, Yobe State, between October 29 and 30, 2026, TruthNigeria has learned.
The attackers, many of them underage recruits pressed into service amid severe logistical shortages, were attempting to overrun the bases and seize weapons from military stores. Frontline accounts describe a desperate push that was met by a prepared ambush, turning an intended armory raid into a costly defeat.
“Boko Haram nearly overwhelmed us, but we laid the ambush and killed dozens of the terrorists. Most of them were young children. It was not a usual day for them—they met their Waterloo,” said a security source who spoke anonymously from the frontline to TruthNigeria.
The fleeing terrorists suffered injuries. They are in short supply of weapons and came to overrun the military base to steal the armory,” according to the same security source. The presence of large numbers of underage fighters marked a shift from earlier patterns of more experienced combatants, underscoring how depleted the groups have become, he added.
Punch Newspapers reported that troops of Operation HADIN KAI killed 48 Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists while foiling the attacks in Bitta and Buni Yadi and recovering a weapons cache.
Terror in the Town: The Enemy Within
Local vigilante security sources earlier contacted TruthNigeria with a security alert highlighting the military victory while raising a deeper concern about intelligence leaks closer to the formations.
“We are not only dealing with monsters in the bush—we have them in town giving them intelligence to exploit military formations,” said the local vigilante security on background to TruthNigeria. The vigilante stressed that community-level informants sabotage troop movements, allowing even poorly equipped attackers to probe bases that otherwise would be difficult to approach.
This revelation comes amid high-profile arrests pointing to possible institutional betrayal. Nigerian security forces recently arrested a prominent politician, Abba Mai Salati (also widely tracked in regional security networks as Mai Salati), over alleged deep-seated connections to terrorism financing and logistics support for insurgents in the North East.
Daily Nigerian separately detailed how Nigerian troops repelled the assault on the Northeast Theatre Training School in Buni Yadi, neutralising 48 suspected terrorists and seizing 42 AK-47 rifles along with machine guns and a mortar.
Expert Warning: ‘Playing Defence Will Expand the War’
“As long as the military continues to play defence instead of launching relentless offensive operations, terrorism will keep expanding across new corridors,” Supol Ghaida (retired), who served extensively as a Superintendent of Mobile Police, told TruthNigeria.
Ghaida further criticised how Nigeria’s own Deep State (also known as “Cabals”) exploits the war to siphon off massive funds budgeted annually for state security. He emphasised that despite the federal government allocating vast expenditures towards heavy arms and ammunition acquisitions, troops on the frontlines remain severely ill-equipped—a glaring disparity that emboldens desperate terrorist groups. Without sustained offensives that clear camps and cut supply lines, he argued, the pattern of base assaults will simply continue in new locations.
Channels Television updated its coverage to confirm the same casualty figures and the recovery of arms after the combined air and ground response in Borno and Yobe. See c
Nigerian Army Official Statement
According to an official operational press release issued by Captain Mohammed Goni, Acting Media Information Officer for Headquarters Joint Task Force (North East) Operation HADIN KAI, Nigerian troops successfully repelled the coordinated assaults.
– Casualties Inflicted: 48 Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists were neutralised during a fierce five-hour counter-offensive involving joint ground assets and air support (ISTAR).
– Troop Casualties: One brave soldier paid the supreme sacrifice, while two others sustained minor injuries and are currently undergoing treatment.
Crisis Observations by Zagazola Makama
Security analyst and counter-insurgency expert Zagazola Makama has frequently highlighted similar patterns in recent military engagements across the Lake Chad basin. Makama noted in past reports that as Boko Haram and ISWAP face severe logistical blockades, they resort to sending undertrained, youthful recruits on near-suicidal raids aimed at stealing military armouries.
Analysing the latest Buni Yadi attack, Makama reinforced that while the military’s integration of ISTAR capabilities and tactical ambushes yielded massive casualties against the insurgents, the persistent threat posed by local informants—coupled with terror groups using low-yield rocket artillery and improvised explosive devices (IEDs)— accentuates the need for sustained offensive sweeps to completely break the back of the insurgency. Without clearing the surrounding corridors and disrupting the informant networks, even successful base defences risk becoming temporary setbacks rather than lasting gains.
The Human Cost: A Community Trapped in Fear
The painful tragedy of this unending war is that civilians continue to pay a high price. People cannot go to their farms, cannot move freely on the roads, and millions have been displaced with thousands killed across the region. Entire communities in Gujba and neighbouring areas remain trapped between hunger and the threat of attack, with ancestral lands left uncultivated for years.
“We are living in a continuous, waking nightmare where the laughter of our innocent children has been completely replaced by the deafening roar of explosions, and our ancestral farmlands have been turned into open graveyards. Everyday villagers are forced to make an agonising choice between starving in silence at home or risking their lives to harvest a single crop,” Pastor James Andrew, a cleric from Gujba Local Government Area, told TruthNigeria with a voice heavy with deep sorrow.
Suleman Ayuba conflict reporter for TruthNigeria.
