SETRACO KIDNAP CRISIS: FIVE BRITISH MILITARY PLANES ARRIVE IN NIGERIA

An attempt to rescue abducted
seven expatriates working with SETRACO Construction Company in Jama’are local
government area of Bauchi State might be under way. Five British jet bombers
yesterday arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

LEADERSHIP WEEKEND exclusively sighted the bombers which were
parked at the international wing of the airport.

The foreign workers, who included five Lebanese, a Briton and an
Italian, were abducted last Saturday by unknown gunmen in Bauchi.

LEADERSHIP WEEKEND further gathered that the bombers might be on
their way to prepare ground for the eventual rescue of the foreigners.

The jet bombers were said to have arrived in the early hours of
yesterday while their colours comprised three ash and two army green. The army
green jets were marked “Royal Army”.

LEADERSHIP WEEKEND further observed some foreign soldiers
putting on brown camouflage uniforms were entering one of the army green jets
in preparation for departure.

It was further gathered that some of the jets had started
leaving the airport for certain locations to assist in the rescue of the
kidnapped foreigners.

The four grey-coloured jets departed the Abuja airport at about
5.55pm, leaving only the army-green jet at the airport as at press time.

The entry of the jets, the military source said, was to prevent
the recent failed rescue operation in Sokoto where the terrorists killed the
foreigners before they could be rescued by the security agencies, including
foreign officers.

When contacted over the unusual sighting of the jets, the British
high commissioner in Nigeria, Mr. Rob Fitzpatrick, told LEADERSHIP WEEKEND,
“This is routine military-to-military engagement.”

Two hostages, Chris McManus (Britain) and Franco Lamolinara
(Italy), were found dead in Sokoto on March 9, 2012, during a failed joint
rescue mission by the British special forces and the Nigerian military. A group
that claimed ties to al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, which
happened in May 2011.

The rescue attempt began in the morning in Sokoto’s Mabera neighbourhood,
a sprawling maze of sandy roads and single-storey cement homes on what used to
be fertile farmland surrounding the city of 500,000 people. Residents said a
seemingly unending barrage of gunfire followed, as did an attack led by a
military armoured personnel carrier.

Once inside in the compound, soldiers found the two men had been
killed. But details of how and when they died remained unclear

Information from the raid came from individuals arrested by
Nigeria’s security agencies before the operation, a senior official in Nigeria
said. However, British officials worried the kidnappers would realise “the net
was closing” on their location.

The rescue effort ended months of uncertainty about what
happened to McManus and Lamolinara. McManus was working for construction
company B.Stabilini when he was kidnapped on May 12, 2011, by gunmen who
stormed his apartment in the city of Birnin-Kebbi, about 110 miles (180
kilometers) away from Sokoto. Lamolinara was also abducted.

A German colleague managed to escape by scaling a wall, but a
Nigerian engineer was shot and wounded.

A video later released showed the kidnappers claiming they
belonged to al-Qaida and threatening to kill McManus and Lamolinara if their
demands were not met.

Britain’s Foreign Office had said two men were held by
terrorists associated with Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect in Nigeria
blamed for more than 300 killings this year alone. A senior British government
official said the kidnappers appeared to be from an al-Qaida-linked cell within
Boko Haram, but not within the group’s main faction.