Retired General Anthony Atolagbe, former Sector Commander of Operation Safe Haven, says Boko Haram altered its battlefield tactics after suffering heavy losses from Nigerian military strikes.
Speaking in an interview with Arise TV, Atolagbe said the insurgents realized that military warheads were causing significant damage to their positions and responded by adopting dispersal tactics.
According to him, instead of concentrating about 100 fighters in a single enclave, Boko Haram began dividing its members into smaller groups of about five, positioned up to 200 metres apart.
“There was a time that our delivery of warheads into their positions, they noticed that it was having devastating effects on them. What did they do? They embarked on dispersal arrangements such that instead of you to have about 100 people in just one enclave, they spread themselves in such a way that you have five here, five in the other corner, spreading within a radius of almost 200 metres away,” Atolagbe said.
He explained that because the warheads have an effective blast radius of about 50 to 100 metres, the tactic reduced the impact of individual strikes. Atolagbe urged the military to continue monitoring the group’s evolving strategies and adapt its operations accordingly.
