THE Nigerian Army has maintained sealed lips hours after reports emerged that 11 captives in the den of Islamic State of West Africa Province, (ISWAP) were executed on Christmas Day.

Neither the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) nor the Nigerian Army could react to the development when Vanguard sought their reactions on Thursday.

The acting Director of Defence Information, Brig. Onyema Nwachukwu, while responding to Vanguard’s inquiry on the veracity or otherwise of the report, referred the matter to the Nigerian Army, saying it was the army’s place to react.

But several calls made to the known mobile phone line of the acting Director of Army Public Relations, Col. Sagir Musa, were not answered.

A follow-up text message sent to the number was yet to be responded to at the time of filing this report.

The ISWAP fighters were reported to have executed 11 captives in its den on Christmas Day.

Ahmad Salkida, a conflict journalist renowned for his monitoring of terrorist activities in Nigeria’s northeast, had said the captives were executed on Christmas Day.

According to Salkida, who disclosed this in his website @ salkida.com, said ISWAP claimed the captives were executed “as a revenge for the killings of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Abul-Hasan Al-Muhajir in Iraq and Syria.”

“But conflict journalists and researchers, including Jacob Zenn, said ‘it is possible ISIS ordered ISWAP to kill them’ as it had intervened in other hostage situations,” he said.

Source: Vanguard.

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