Challenges at Frontline of Nigeria Extremist Fight Islamist extremists raised their black flag over this village in the remote plains of northeast Nigeria, setting fire to a church, shutting down the schools and bombing the police station in a violent overthrow of government control. Just as quickly as they rose out of the desert scrub several months ago, however, they recently disappeared as Nigeria's military regained control of this area as part of a new offensive. As attack helicopters hovered overhead and tanks hid among the scrawny trees, military commanders told journalists touring the region Wednesday that they had struck a decisive blow against radicals who want to impose strict Islamic law over this multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. Yet behind the smiles and speeches, commanders acknowledged fighters with the extremist network Boko Haram likely escaped their dragnet, burning equipment they couldn't carry while still maintaining an arsenal of heavy weaponry. That means Nigeria's quick military successes may carry the price of years of troop commitments in this region of crumbling roads and derelict power lines to hold territory against a now-unseen adversary. "One year, two years, three years - that's what we signed up for," Lt. Col. Olufemi Olorunyomi said. The new military offensive comes after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency May 14 in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states - a territory of some 155,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles) of the Sahel bordering Cameroon, Chad and Niger. In a nationally televised speech, Jonathan acknowledged that the nation had lost control of some villages and towns to extremist fighters already responsible for more than 1,600 killings since 2010 alone, according to an Associated Press count. Military reinforcements arrived to a northeast already heavily occupied with soldiers, but now with the authority to arrest anyone at will and occupy any building believed to harbor extremists. For weeks, the military issued statements outlining quick advances and mass arrests, while never offering clear explanations of its own losses. On Wednesday, the military flew foreign and local journalists from Nigeria's capital, Abuja, to Maiduguri in Borno state as part of a tour of one battleground area. The tour clearly offered the message Nigeria's military wants publicized: Soldiers routed the extremists. The chief of defense staff "was interested in the whole world knowing what was going on, and we have nothing to hide," said Gen. Jah Ewansiha, the commanding officer of the joint police and military task force in the northeast. However, commanders ordered journalists not to "clandestinely interview" any soldiers and tried to limit questions to officers who spoke along the way. Officers displayed out of a cache of weapons they said they seized from Boko Haram fighters, ranging from locally made pistols that fire a single shotgun shell to truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns firing 12.7 mm rounds. Long belts of heavy ammunition mixed with rounds for Kalashnikov assault rifles. Much of the weaponry appears to be from old Eastern Europe arsenals, Col. Kayode Ogundele said, likely smuggled into the country as part of West Africa's thriving illegal arms trade. The colonel acknowledged that extremists likely still have anti-aircraft guns and other sophisticated weaponry that poses a serious threat to Nigeria's military. "I have a strong belief they still have some of them, and we are on it," Ogundele said.