Nigerian troops kill over 300 'terrorists' in restive north

GUSAU, Nigeria: Nigerian troops killed over 300 members of kidnapping and cattle rustling gangs in the northwestern state of Zamfara this week, a state official said Friday.

Troops targeted the gangs in Gummi district in a two-day operation that “led to the elimination of more than 300 terrorists,” Zamfara information commissioner Mahmud Muhammad Dantawasa said in a statement.

Jihadists and “bandit” gangs specialising in kidnapping for ransom terrorise communities in northern and central Nigeria, where they launch deadly raids and impose levies on farmers wishing to access their own fields.

Security analysts have noted increasing cooperation between the criminal gangs, who are motivated primarily by financial gains in the impoverished country, and jihadists, who are waging a 17-year-old insurrection in the northeast.

Abubakar Muhammad, a Gummi resident, said soldiers and local vigilantes fought around 1,000 bandits who were relocating from their camp with hundreds of stolen herd late on Wednesday through Thursday.

“The soldiers and the vigilantes killed more than 300 bandits in the fight which raged all night and the following morning,” Muhammad told AFP.

Abubakar Kudi-Kasa, another resident, said the offensive erupted around 2130 GMT Wednesday and the sound of gunfire and explosions kept the town awake throughout the night.

“The bandits are still under siege by soldiers and vigilantes,” Kudi-Kasa told AFP.

Troops tried to overrun the bandits’ camp two weeks ago but were forced to withdraw due to the “sheer number of the well-armed bandits”, Kudi-Kasa said.

“The soldiers prepared well and returned to hit them hard.”

In July last year, Nigerian soldiers killed at least 150 bandits in an ambush on a massive convoy of around 350 bandits in nearby Kebbi state as they were heading to their camp in neighbouring Niger state, local officials said.

A month later, the military killed more than 100 bandits in Zamfara’s Bukkuyum local government area, where fighter jets in coordination with ground troops pounded a gathering of more than 400 gang members in a forest camp, according to a security report prepared for the United Nations.

The Zamfara government described this week’s operation as a “significant breakthrough” in the fight against violent crime.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country is grappling with multiple security crises.

Northeast Nigeria has been gripped by an Islamist extremist insurgency since 2009, first by Boko Haram, then its offshoot and rival, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

Washington has since deployed hundreds of troops to Nigeria to support and train its forces.

A special joint US-Nigeria operation killed the global second-in-command of the Islamic State group, alongside nearly 200 other fighters a remote village in northeastern Nigeria.