By Kingsley Omonobi

ABUJA—Minister of Defence, Aliyu Gusau, said yesterday that Federal Government was set to re-engineer the nation’s defence and security system to cope with the threats of terrorism.

Declaring open the 2014 Defence Advisers Conference in Abuja, the minister said a natural element of the re-engineering process was the review of the national defence policy, which had commenced.

While regretting the high cost of destruction in the number of people killed, communities razed and persons kidnapped, Gusau charged the defence advisers to see the fight against terrorism as an onerous assignment by helping to bridge the intelligence gaps and knowledge of the terrorist groups.

He charged the defence advisers to do this by providing intelligence about ‘the foreign source of support, training, weapons, funding and the flow of foreign fighters’.

Gusau said: “The global security environment remains shaky and unstable. Small groups and small countries are the focus of instability and inhumanity, which arrest world attention.

“The new and ugly face of global terrorism is marked by execution, extreme brutality, impunity and abductions.

“In different regions of the world, where the surge of terrorism persists, the perpetrators share a common agenda to unleash terror, mayhem, destruction and instability around the world.

“There is no doubt that the foreign fighters have added a troubling dimension to this emerging phase of terrorism.

“From targeted attacks by one group a few years ago, we now have a mobile band of thousands of terrorists sweeping across many areas.”