The group, known as Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection (STTEP), led by Colonel Eeben Barlow, had, since January, taken charge of the training of elite strike group within the Nigerian Army in a tactic known as “relentless pursuit,” which involved mimicking Boko Haram’s hit-and-run tactics with non-stop assaults.
President Jonathan’s decision to hire STTEP, it was disclosed, was due to government’s failure to either tackle Boko Haram or free the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.
This consequently proved decisive in the invasion of strongholds of the Boko Haram insurgents, leading to the freeing of hundreds of girls and women hitherto used by Boko Haram as slaves and wives.
Barlow, a former commander in the South African Defence Force, had made this disclosure when he discussed his company’s role in a seminar at the Royal Danish Defence College, and similarly, in an interview with a special forces website, Sofrep.com, where he described the aggressive strike force created to push Boko Haram on the back foot.
Barlow had hired South African mercenaries to make up a squad of grizzled, ageing white mercenaries to help end Boko Haram’s six-year long reign of terror in northern Nigeria.
Making the disclosure, he said the initial plan was for his men to train up a team to help free the schoolgirls.
However, the plan turned to schooling the Nigeria’s largely traditional army in “unconventional mobile warfare,” owing to Boko Haram’s continued onslaught on Nigerians in countless village raids.
STTEP was thought to have deployed about 100 men in Nigeria, including black troopers, who had previously served in elite South African units.
The tactics by the South Africans included the use of bush trackers to find out the destination of the Boko Haram insurgents, which proved vital in discovering Boko Haram forest hideouts.
“The campaign gathered good momentum and wrested much of the initiative from the enemy. It was not uncommon for the strike force to be met by thousands of cheering locals once the enemy had been driven from an area.
“Yes, many of us are no longer 20-year olds. But with our age has come a knowledge of conflicts and wars in Africa that our younger generation employees have yet to learn, and a steady hand when things get rough,” he said.
Barlow had described Boko Haram as “a bunch of armed thugs who have used religion as the glue to hold their followers.”
Contrarily, the Nigerian government had played down the South African’s role which it regarded as advisory, but Barlow maintained that his men had been involved in direct combat, let alone intelligence gathering, troop transportation and evacuation of casualties.
Barlow, however, warned that while the Nigerians had done well within three months that he had been contracted to mentor them, “the enemy was able to flee the battlefield with some of their forces intact, and will no doubt regroup and continue their acts of terror.”
However, information on how much the Nigerian military paid for STTEP’s services remained unknown.
Source: Tribune
