Seven soldiers were ambushed and killed by terrorists on the dreaded Abuja-Kaduna Expressway.
According to a report by The PUNCH, the attack happened close to the Zuma barracks along the road in the Suleja area of Niger State in the early hours of Wednesday.
A military source revealed that the commanding officer had received a distress call and sent his men to the scene.
The source said contrary to the speculation that the barracks was overrun and some soldiers killed, it was an ambush close to the facility.
The source said, “The commanding officer received a distress call on the activities of bandits around the Diko area, which is not far from the Zuma barracks. He deployed men but unfortunately, they were ambushed and seven soldiers died in that ambush. There was, however, no attack on the barracks as speculated. The incident happened between 4am and 5am on Wednesday.”
Efforts to get the reaction of the Director, Media Operations, Nigerian Army, Major General Bernard Onyeuko, were not successful. Calls to his line were not answered and he had yet to respond to a message sent to him on the matter as of the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has ordered the immediate deployment of a combined team of soldiers, operatives of the Department of State Services to locate and possibly rescue passengers abducted by terrorists, who attacked the Kaduna-Abuja train on Monday.
It was learnt that the Federal Government had given the Nigerian Air Force express approval to deploy the Super Tucano aircraft in the North-West albeit with conditions that collateral damage be minimised.
It was gathered that the special team was given express orders to locate the abductors’ camp and do “everything operationally possible” to rescue the hostages with minimal losses.
