The Nigerian Air Force, NAF, has released a video to buttress it claim that the military onslaught on Boko Haram involves precision airstrikes on targets.

This is to refute claims by the insurgent group that bombs from a military jet killed many of the abducted Chibok girls.

Boko Haram had released a video on Sunday showing some of the kidnapped girls and alleging that airstrike by the military had killed most of them while 40 others had been married off to their members.

Although the Boko Haram video showed a military jet in the air and the dead bodies of the girls allegedly killed after the jet bombed their location, it did not however, show when the bomb dropped on the girls. .

But in a statement late Tuesday by Ayodele Famuyiwa, NAF’s Director of public relations and information, the Force described Boko Haram’s claims as a ruse and “another mischievous effort by the dying sect to draw public attention to itself.

Famuyiwa stated that the video by the terrorists “provided no evidence that the supposed casualties were as a result of any air to ground attack”,  adding that “the positioning of the bodies clearly defiles any natural setting of a location that has undergone aerial bombardment.”

“Besides, the impact and accompanying degree of damage to the bodies would have been more, were they to have died from air strike,” he said.

“It is therefore clear that the video is a make-up story to discredit the NAF, and more importantly, a deliberate effort to whip up sentiment among the public in order to dissuade and discontinue the use of airpower which has proved very effective as the major determinant factor in the successes recorded in the ongoing counterinsurgency operations in the North East.”

The video released by NAF clearly showed that the terrorists were being monitored.

A part showed what looked like a military truck conveying what was labeled in the video as “BHT” and two of them alighted from the truck and ran down the forest and the truck drove off.

Another part showed a group of people labeled “women in hijab and children” walking about in the forest.

NAF’s monitoring of militants in the South-South and Southwest was also shown towards the end of the video.

The video, however, did not show the actual shelling process, nor did it show the location that was shelled.

But it proves that some monitoring was carried out by NAF on Boko Haram terrorists in the Sambisa forest before airstrikes were conducted.

The NAF spokesman said that there are “measures to avoid the incidence of collateral damage” and “to ensure that only legitimate military targets are engaged”, adding that “where there are doubts about target status, we do not undertake strike missions.”

“Besides, NAF ISR platforms carry highly sophisticated equipment on-board which are able to provide pin-point accurate intelligence about target location and description as depicted in the enclosed video on our ISR operations,” he stated.

Famuyiwa assured Nigerians in the Northeast of their safety and urged them to disregard the Boko Haram video as mere propaganda.

“The NAF wishes to use this opportunity to restate its commitment to restoration of peace in the North East and other troubled areas in the country,” he said

This is the link to the video confirming precision air operation: https://youtu.be/ss3guErx3Mc