The Nigerian air force on Monday said that one of its planes "came under intense enemy fire" from gangs with the pilot ultimately forced to bail out.
The Alpha Jet had been operating around the boundaries of Zamfara and Kaduna State when the incident happened.
Air force front man Edward Gabkwet said in a statement that the fighter jet was "returning from a successful air interdiction mission" on Sunday
"Using his survival instincts, the pilot, who came under intense ground fire from the bandidos, was able to evade them and sought refuge in nearby settlements awaiting sunset," the statement said.
The pilot, Abayomi Dairo, found his way to an army base where he was rescued after ejecting from the cockpit.
ZAMFARA STATE RIDDLED WITH VIOLENCE
A video being circulated online showed the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...taking responsibility for the attack. However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
this turned out to be a recycled video first released in April when another Nigerian Alpha Jet was downed.
Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
West Africa Province, are probably the most famous bully boy groups battling for control of parts of northern Nigeria and neighboring countries.
Zamfara and neighboring Kaduna are among the states with a surge in criminal activities such as mass abductions of schoolchildren and armed robberies. This is often carried out by large gangs of outlaws, typically dubbed "bandidos" by the government, who operate from remote hideouts.
According to the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
Refugee Agency, nearly 2,4 million people in Nigeria and neighboring countries have been forced to flee because of terrorist groups.
Nigeria's government has become increasingly reliant on its air force to carry out missions in areas where its ground forces can no longer safely tread. Pilots have been carrying out sorties daily over Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina states for the past two weeks, with the military reporting that they "neutralized" hundreds of bandidos.
This May, Nigeria's top military officer Ibrahim Attahiru was killed in a plane crash in bad weather on an official visit to Kaduna state.