SaharaReporters learnt that the police inspectors were part of Operation Hadarin Daji – the joint exercise launched against bandits and other criminals in the North-West region and coordinated by the Defence Headquarters, Abuja.
Terrorists believed to have links to the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) have ambushed and killed no fewer than five Nigerian Police inspectors who were on a joint operation with the military at Magami – a community in Zamfara State near Niger Republic.
SaharaReporters learnt that the police inspectors were part of Operation Hadarin Daji – the joint exercise launched against bandits and other criminals in the North-West region and coordinated by the Defence Headquarters, Abuja.
A police source confirmed to SaharaReporters on Wednesday that the police inspectors wer members of his unit and were lost in the early hours of Tuesday to the ambush laid by the terrorists for them at Magami.
“Inspector Suleiman Audu, Inspector Sanusi, Inspector Tanzin Audu from Nasarawa State, inspector Dashi and Yahaya Ibrahim were all members of my unit lost in the operation. It was not an easy task. In the early hours of yesterday (Tuesday), our joint patrol operation in Magami area of Zamfara was ambushed.
“Magami is a border area with Niger Republic; so it is easy for the bandits to escape freely when the battle becomes tough,” he explained.
When contacted by SaharaReporters, the Zamfara State police spokesperson, Yazid Abubakar, neither confirmed nor refuted the report, saying he was not in a position to comment, since it was a joint operation from the DHQ.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that at least 34 people, including seven soldiers were killed by terrorists in Dan Gulbi district, Maru Local Government of Zamfara State.
According to the head of the local vigilante group, Ismail Magaji, the incident occurred on Monday afternoon.
A resident, Lawali Zonai, also narrated how the soldiers were ambushed and killed on their way to aid the community from the attack.
Zonai had said, "Twenty-seven villagers were killed in the attack while seven military personnel were ambushed on their way to aid the community from the gruesome attack."
Spokesperson for the Zamfara state police is yet to confirm the incident.
Gangs of heavily armed men, locally referred to as bandits, have wreaked havoc across Northern Nigeria in the past three years, kidnapping thousands, killing hundreds and making it unsafe to travel by road or farm in some areas.
The attacks have confounded Nigeria's security forces that are overstretched combating a 14-year Islamist insurgency in the northeast, violent farmer-herder and sectarian clashes in the central region and rising attacks by a separatist group in the South-East.