Port Harcourt/Yenagoa/Warri — The Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta has recovered anti-aircraft ammunition from some militants' hideouts in Bomadi and other parts of Delta and Bayelsa States.

Speaking with THISDAY yesterday, the Coordinator of the Joint Media Campaign of the JTF, Brig-Gen Rabe Abubakar, said the operation in suspected hideouts of militants across Delta State had yielded unprecedented fruits.

The JTF operation is coming just as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has decried Monday's razing of Agge, an Ijaw settlement in Bayelsa State, by the Federal Government and JTF operating in the region.

The operation is sequel to the attack on a military forward operating base in Bomadi, Delta State in the early hours of Sunday.

The JTF had commenced search operations in coastal communities meant to smoke out suspected militants who allegedly masterminded the attack.

Some militants had attacked a military forward operating base in Bomadi in the early hours of Sunday, killing two soldiers and carting away a gunboat laden with arsenal to repel any attack.

The militants were said to have taken the boat to an area in Bomadi where they stripped it of all its military hardware before abandoning the carcass for the soldiers.

The humiliating action was said to have irked the military high command, which ordered that the perpetrators must be brought to book.

The cordon-and-search operation by JTF is coming on the heels of alleged threats by some businessmen in area to deal with the Commander of the JTF, Brig-Gen. Naven Wuyep Rimtip.

The threat, it was learnt, followed JTF's destruction of a total of 111 illegal local refineries in Bomadi and Burutu Local Government Areas of Delta State.

The destruction, they claimed, had halted their sources of income; and, they had therefore vowed to deal with the commander.

Beside the anti-aircraft ammunition, Abubakar said the JTF also recovered "three speedboats and one double barrelled gun in Aggei, a riverside village on the Delta and Bayelsa States' border."

"A wooden boat fully loaded with substance suspected to be crude oil in Oghara, the administrative headquarters of Ethiope West Local Government Area was also found.

"The cordon-and-search on areas suspected to be hideouts of criminals will continue and we will not rest on our oars until maximum security is achieved. Nobody is harassed, maimed or killed as being circulated in some quarters," Abubakar added.

According to him, "The law-abiding people in the area where the operation is being conducted are advised to go about their normal businesses without fear of molestation."

MEND, which condemned JTF for carrying out such an attack, described the military as lacking in finesse and exhibiting hooliganism, adding that such military action against a civilian populace was only possible in Nazi regime and the Bosnian war.

It said inasmuch as it does not support criminality, it advised the JTF to investigate well before launching such bizarre operation where it alleged that heavy duty equipment were deployed against the civilians which caused high death toll.

"The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) condemns the wanton destruction of lives and property in the impoverished Ijaw community of Agge by the cowardly men of the military Joint Task Force on August 4, 2008.

"Nowhere in the world except during the Nazi regime and Bosnia war do soldiers destroy whole villages because of the sins of a few men. It is unfortunate that an already neglected community of impoverished fishermen would have their mud houses, fishing nets and canoes destroyed in the army's search for 'criminals," the group said.

Meanwhile, residents of Letugbene and Bilabiri, neighbouring communities to Agge in Ekeremor Local Government Area are afraid to venture out of their towns and villages following the condoning of the entire area by the JTF.

The people have therefore sent a Save-Our-Soul appeal to the military high command to come to their aid.