Gunmen on Tuesday killed 11 security personnel, including seven police officers and four vigilantes, in attacks in central and northwestern Nigeria.
Northwest and central Nigeria have been terrorized for years by gangs who raid and loot villages, steal cattle and carry out mass abductions of residents for ransom.
The attacks have intensified, despite military attempts to drive bandits out of their camps in forests.
In the first attack on Tuesday, scores of bandits stormed a police station in central Niger State’s Magama District at about midday, leading to a gunfight with policemen and local militia, Niger police spokesman Wasiu Biodun said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, during the gun battle, the DPO [Divisional Police Officer], two other police officers and four vigilante members lost their lives,” Biodun said in the statement.
Several bandits were also “neutralized” in the “fierce gun battle” in which many of the attackers escaped with injuries, the statement said.
Police personnel deployed in the area after the attacks to maintain order, Biodun said.
In the second attack in Kebbi State, motorcycle-riding bandits numbering about 500 invaded a tomato-processing factory in Gafara village of Ngaski District, in a bid to abduct expatriate workers, Kebbi police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar said.
“The policemen guarding the factory engaged the bandits in a gunfight, which led to the death of four policemen and one resident, while several of the gunmen were also killed,” Abubakar said.
The gunmen launched the attack from their base in Niger, Abubakar said. “They [bandits] wanted to kidnap the expatriates, but they did not succeed in their nefarious mission.”
The bandits, who were officially declared terrorists by the government in January, operate from camps hidden in a vast forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.
Bandit violence in Nigeria’s northwest and central states is just one challenge facing security forces, who are also fighting against a 12-year jihadist insurgency in the northeast and separatist tensions in the southeast of the country.
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