ZAMFARA: Air raid kills 25 bandits, Nigerian Air Force claims

No less than 25 bandits in Zamfara State, who have been attacking and maiming innocent citizens, have been neutralized by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF).

According to NAF, its Air Task Force (ATF) for Operation Diran Mikiya carried out the bombardments and successfully destroyed a bandits’ logistics base at Ajia in Birnin Magaji Local Government Area (LGA) of the state.

NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Ibikunle Daramola, who made this known in a statement issued in Abuja, added that ATF also killed dozens of the bandits at Ajia and Wonaka in another LG area of the state, Birnin Magaji.

Daramola said the operation was carried out after Human Intelligence (HUMINT) reports hinted that the bandits were using a compound within Ajia as a logistics store to support their operations.

He said that following the report the “ATF dispatched a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Alpha Jet, supported by an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platform, to attack the compound scoring accurate strikes on the target and causing it to erupt into flames, which engulfed the structures and resulted in the neutralisation of some of the bandits.”

He went further to say that few survivors seen fleeing the vicinity of the target area were consequently taken out in follow-on attacks while others, who managed to escape the area, were tracked to Wonaka and then neutralised.

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“Independent HUMINT sources subsequently confirmed that more than 25 bandits were neutralised in the attacks on the two locations.

“The NAF, working in close coordination with sister services and other security agencies, will sustain its operations to neutralise the bandits and deny them freedom of action in the North West,” he added.

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