About 10 military personnel, including a major and a specified number of local vigilantes, were killed during a firefight with terrorists in Zungeru, Wushshi local government area, Niger State.
It was also gathered that eight other soldiers sustained severe injuries in the gun battle, in which they fought the bandits to a standstill and killed well over 30 of them.
According to sources, the military personnel ran into an ambush on their way to respond to a distress call from the Akare community, where the bandits, numbering about 70 and reportedly armed with sophisticated weapons, were rustling cattle.
In another development, a Nigerian Air Force, NAF, aircraft has crashed in Niger state.
Sources said the aircraft took off from Kaduna en-route to Minna, the Niger state capital when the incident occurred.
NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet, while confirming the incident in a statement, said the aircraft departed Zungeru Primary School en-route to Kaduna but was later discovered to have crashed in a village in Shiroro local government area of Niger State.
