There were indications, Thursday night, that bandits from Niger State bent on infiltrating Abuja to unleash havoc from the Suleija-Zuma axis may have killed six soldiers and two officers in an ambush attack.
During the attack, which later snowballed into a full fledged confrontation, several of the bandits were reportedly neutralized by troops re-enforcement.
Some of the soldiers were reportedly injured during the encounter and were evacuated to military hospital in the Federal Capital Territory.
One of the wounded soldiers is said to be in critical condition.
It was gatheted that following the receipt of intelligence that a large number of persons suspected to be bandits were converging in the forest between Suleija and Zuma, along the Abuja-Kaduna expressway, troops of 102 battalion, under the Guards Brigade, were deployed to the scene.
However, as the troops led by the two officers approached, the bandits opened fire from multiple angles of the forest resulting in a counter-offensive by the troops.
At the end of the encounter, the remains of the two officers and six soldiers were recovered.
Some soldiers, who could not stand the firepower of the bandits who were said to be heavily armed, were said to have escaped from the scene, while those who survived ran to the barracks and reported the ambush before a reinforcement was deployed.
The Comnanding Officer of the 102 Guards Battalion was said to have personally mibilized troops in five operational vehicles from the Zuma Army barracks for the counter-offensive.
The confrontation with the bandits, who were said to have numbered about 100, led to the elimination of many of the bandits while others escaped with bulket wounds.
