Soldier Killed As Terrorists Attack Yobe Military Base

The assault by non-state actors on instruments of the Nigerian state continued over the weekend as a soldier was reportedly killed on Saturday night when suspected terrorists attacked a military base in Gujba town in Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State.

The Yobe State Police Command spokesman, DSP Dungus Abdulkarim, who confirmed the attack yesterday, said a military patrol vehicle was also torched by the suspected terrorists.

“The only thing I can confirm to you now is the attack. A soldier was killed, and troops and CJTF engaged the suspected terrorists,” he said.

However, local sources told the media that the suspected insurgents, who stormed the town around midnight, shooting indiscriminately and subsequently attacking the military base, were later repelled by troops who chased them into the surrounding bush.

A resident of Gujba, Modu Bahna, said: “They (suspected terrorists) stormed the town some minutes after midnight, shooting sporadically and the majority of us took to our heels into the surrounding bushes for our dear lives.”

“The attackers did not kill any civilians or loot food or other essential commodities stores,” another source, Dala Bukar, said, adding: “They only attacked the two patrol vehicles in the military base where a soldier was killed.”

The latest killing of a member of the Nigerian Armed Forces is coming barely 11 days after 17 soldiers were killed during a communal clash in Okuama in Delta State.

The casualties included a Lt. Col., two Majors, a Captain, and 13 soldiers. They were said to have met their deaths while responding to a distress call during a clash between Okuama and Okoloba communities in the state.

Also over the weekend the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) also lost a number of its personnel in attacks carried out on them in Delta and Imo states.

Six police officers were killed in an ambush in Delta State on Saturday by armed assailants while undertaking a mission to investigate the disappearance and rescue of three of their colleagues in the Ohoro Forest in the state, while six others went missing-in-action.

This was followed by another attack on police operatives attached to MOPOL 18, Owerri, Imo State, when two operatives were also killed on Saturday by gunmen in the Okigwe area of the state.

It was learnt that the gunmen, suspected to be members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra and its affiliate, Eastern Security Network, threw dynamite at the police patrol vehicle and engaged the policemen in a fire fight along old Gariki Road.