Nigerian military forces have rescued 31 people from captivity and killed five militants during a series of coordinated operations across Zamfara and Katsina states, in what the army described as a significant blow against terrorist networks entrenched in the country’s troubled north-west.
The operations, carried out by troops of Operation FANSAN YAMMA, were announced on Friday by Lt Col Olaniyi Osoba, acting deputy director of army public relations for the 8 Division of the Nigerian Army. They involved a combination of precision airstrikes and ground assaults targeting militant camps in some of the region’s most volatile terrain.
The largest rescue took place around the Bagega-Kawaye axis in Anka local government area of Zamfara state, where an air interdiction by the operation’s air component was followed by a ground assault on militant enclaves west of Bagega Forest. The 31 victims freed there had spent several weeks in captivity and were drawn from communities spread across multiple local government areas in Zamfara and Sokoto states, including Maga, Gummi, Zuru, Wasugu, Bukuyyum and Anka. The military said they had received medical attention and would shortly be reunited with their families.
In a separate engagement in Zamfara, troops operating along the Maradun and Gidan Dan Jaja axis killed two militants, destroyed several camps and recovered fabricated rifles and four motorcycles. The military said the camps had served as operational bases for criminal networks that have long exploited the region’s vast forests and ungoverned border areas.
The most tactically sensitive of the three operations unfolded in Katsina state, where troops intercepted a group of militants on the Ruwan Godiya axis and Sayaya Road in Matazu local government area as they were allegedly moving into position to launch an attack. Three militants were killed in the ensuing gun battle. Among the dead, the military disclosed, was a foot soldier loyal to Muhammad Fulani, a militant commander described by security forces as a notorious kingpin in the region’s banditry networks.
Weapons, ammunition and motorcycles were recovered across the operations.
The north-west has been convulsed by banditry and mass kidnapping for the better part of a decade, with armed groups — often loosely described as bandits but increasingly overlapping with jihadist networks — preying on farming and pastoral communities across Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi states. The scale of civilian displacement and the frequency of abductions have made the region one of Nigeria’s most acute security emergencies, even as it receives comparatively less international attention than the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east.
Osoba said Operation FANSAN YAMMA remained committed to sustaining offensive pressure against militant groups across the region.
