Armed bandits
Five police officers attached to Zone 10 Command have been killed after suspected terrorists ambushed a commercial bus conveying them to Zamfara State for a special assignment along the Sokoto-Gusau Road.
The Police Public Relations Officer of Zone 10, DSP Abdullahi Faruk, confirmed the incident on Monday, saying the bodies of the slain officers had been deposited at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) mortuary in Sokoto.
Faruk said investigations had already commenced and promised that more details would be made available as the probe progresses.
Available information indicated that the officers were travelling from Sokoto to Zamfara for a special duty when the commercial bus belonging to the Zamfara State Mass Transit Service came under heavy gunfire from suspected terrorists.
The attackers reportedly laid an ambush for the vehicle before opening fire at close range, killing the officers.
The victims were said to have travelled in a commercial bus rather than a security-marked vehicle, a move believed to have been intended to avoid attracting attention.
Reacting to the attack, a relative of one of the slain officers, Abubakar Hassan, called for a thorough investigation, insisting that the operation could not have been successfully carried out without information being leaked to the attackers.
“But for the terrorists to have identified their vehicle, lay ambush for it and opened fire on them at closed range, it means they must have been given prior information about the movement of the vehicle and it’s passengers.
“Honestly, the security situation is Nigeria and especially in the North Western States of the country has become very complex. So complex that no one can be trusted any longer. May their sacrifices never go in vain. And may Almighty Allah expose those terrorists, their backers and informants.”
The latest attack adds to the growing security concerns along the Sokoto-Gusau highway and across Nigeria’s North-West, where terrorists have continued to target security personnel, travellers and rural communities despite ongoing military operations.
Security agencies have intensified efforts to curb the activities of armed groups in the region, but deadly attacks and ambushes remain a major challenge, raising fresh concerns over intelligence leaks and the safety of personnel deployed on special operations.
