Unknown gunmen, suspected to be terrorists, have abducted a Lieutenant Colonel of the Nigerian Army, N.B. Ahmed, after setting up an ambush on a military convoy, local media reported.
The incident took place on Friday, January 6, as the senior military officer was abducted along Tsafe-Kano road in the northwestern state of Zamfara. Lt. Col Ahmed was on his way to assume the command as the new commanding officer of the 8th division of the Nigerian Army in Sokoto, located in extreme northwestern Nigeria, when he was ambushed by terrorists.
According to the media, the bandits, dressed in camouflage uniforms, established a roadblock along the road and abducted the officer. However, there was information about other soldiers who were travelling with him.
However, on Sunday the officer was reportedly rescued following a search and rescue operation conducted by the Nigerian troops on the route between Yankara and Mai-Lafiya in Katsina State.
He was said to be injured during the operation as the troops and bandits were engaged in a gunfight. After being rescued, the senior officer was evacuated to a military hospital in Kaduna. His condition supposedly was stable.
Cases of kidnapping, banditry and cattle rustling are commonplace not only in the north of the West African country, but in the south as well. More that 30 people were recently kidnapped at a railroad station by an armed gang in the southern state of Edo. Last week, over 50 people were reported to have been killed and many more injured in the town of Owo, south-west of Nigeria, in an armed attack by unidentified gunmen on a local church.