Assailants have killed five personnel of the Special Task Force (STF) at the outskirts of Jos in the last three months, according to STF spokesman, Captain Salisu Mustafa.
“We have lost five of our men in the past four months; these security officers were killed by people they were supposed to protect,’’ Mustafa told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos yesterday.
Mustafa was reacting to the killing on Monday of yet another STF personnel, Friday Babale, a police corporal in Katuruk, near Kurra Falls in Barkin Ladi Local Government.
“Friday Bable was shot and his rifle taken away by his attackers,’’ he said, and described the incessant killing of soldiers and police as ‘very strange’.
He condemned the constant attacks on security personnel by the assailants and vowed that such acts would no longer be accepted by the STF.
Mustafa said that the STF had stepped up efforts to fish out Babale’s killers and that the area was condoned off on Tuesday after which STF men conducted a search.
“During the search, we recovered some arms and arrested three suspects,’’ he said.
The STF spokesman said that villages believed to have stockpiled arms would be raided and the arms fished out.
Mustafa warned members of the public against attacking security personnel posted to their areas to protect them.
NAN reports that the rural areas of Plateau, especially Barkin-Ladi and Riyom, have been under persistent night attacks during which members of many families had been totally wiped out.
A new dimension was added to such attacks on Sunday when improvised explosive devices were planted under a bridge along Gol-Hoss road. Mustafa told NAN that the bridge, the only link to the outside world from the villages that had suffered most of the attacks.
“The damage was partial because only one of the devices exploded, while the rest were recovered and neutralised.’’ (NAN)