The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) airstrikes that killed a dreaded terrorists/bandit leader, Gwaska Dankarami, was conducted on Wednesday as a follow up to intelligence reports that some of the terrorists/bandits leaders were meeting in a location.
Sources also confirmed that the killing of the terrorists’ leader and scores of his fighters and lieutenants have caused anxiety among residents of Tashar Biri Village, Yatumaki of Dan Musa Local Government Area (LGA) of Katsina State, Northwest Nigeria.
In fact, they are fleeing in their numbers out of fears of reprisal attacks and highhandedness from the followers of Gwaska, who was on the most wanted list of Nigeria security operatives.
Gwaska, a source noted, had gone to visit one Sabira, a teenage girl he forcefully married when the NAF fighter aircrafts rained bombs on him and his close lieutenants and fighters.
The eliminated terrorists’ leader was allegedly behind the series of attacks around Safana and Dan Musa Local Government Areas (LGA) of Katsina State and even controlled some territories in Zamfara State where he extended his sphere of influence.
The deceased was born in a settlement called Lambar Gabas in Rukudawa district in the Zurmi Local Government Area, where he owned a mansion with more than 38 rooms, a mosque and an Islamiyya school.
His settlement, Lambar Gabas, is situated not more than two kilometres east of Rukudawa, a farming community that has suffered a series of deadly assaults by armed bandits for more than a decade.
His foot soldiers are notoriously known as “Yan Shabakwai” or the “teenagers” because they are mostly young and are responsible for most of the abductions, cattle rustling and deadly raids on dozens of communities.
And enraged by the killing of their leader, other terrorists who suspect the connivance of the Sabira family with leak of the vital information of Gwaska’s visit, are now demanding that Tashar Biri village community must provide Sabira and her mother, pay N30 million or risk being attacked.
Also, in the absence of Sabira, the bandits were said to have abducted her grandmother and one Aliyu who was identified as her son.
Apart from the siege on the community over the killing of Gwaska, the residents are fleeing the village because they got hint that another terrorists’ leader, one Mai Lore, would raid the community and kill everyone.
And they fear that with no military or security location on ground, they will actualize their threat.