Nigerian soldiers have killed more than 300 members of kidnapping and cattle rustling gangs in the northwestern state of Zamfara this week, according to a government official.
Government troops targeted the gangs in Gummi district in a two-day operation that “led to the elimination of more than 300 terrorists”, Zamfara’s information commissioner, Mahmud Muhammad Dantawasa, said in a statement.
Gangs made up of cattle rustlers and jihadists have terrorized communities in northern and central Nigeria, where they raid farmers’ land, steal cattle, and kidnap people for ransom. They also impose levies on farmers who want to access their own land in protection rackets.
Jihadists and criminal gangs have been cooperating in recent years, according to security analysts, who say their mutual interests align. Criminal gangs have become widespread in impoverished rural Nigeria, while jihadists continue a 17-year insurgency in the north. Both are invested in a weak central government.
Residents of Gummi said soldiers and local vigilantes launched a campaign on Wednesday night against about 1,000 bandits who had stolen livestock. “The soldiers and the vigilantes killed more than 300 bandits in the fight which raged all night and the following morning,” Abubakar Muhammad told Agence France-Presse.
Troops had tried to assault the bandits’ camp two weeks ago but were outnumbered and forced to withdraw, residents said. The Zamfara government described the operation as a significant breakthrough in its fight to restore order to the state.
Nigeria faces multiple security crises, including an Islamist insurgency by Boko Haram and its rival, the Islamic State West Africa Province. The government has killed jihadists in recent months in partnership with the US, which has deployed hundreds of troops to support the fight against Islamists. A joint US-Nigeria operation in May killed the second-in-command of Islamic State and about 200 fighters in a village in northeastern Nigeria.
Nigeria also struggles with general lawlessness and banditry fueled by poverty. Jihadists and bandits have long used mass kidnappings of elementary schoolchildren to extract ransom payments. The army said on Saturday it suffered “casualties” during the rescue of more than 40 kidnapped children taken by what authorities said were jihadists. The kidnapping came as a shock because it occurred in the southwest, previously thought relatively safe.
Source: www.theguardian.com