KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 24 people were killed by an airstrike on a village in Nigeria's northern Kaduna state, residents and a local councillor said on Monday, after an Air Force operation targeting armed gangs and their hideout.
The Sept. 27 incident is the latest in a pattern of deadly aerial assaults by the military that have killed civilians, a subject covered in a special Reuters report in June 2023.
Nigeria's military, backed by international allies, has been conducting aggressive campaigns against Islamist insurgents and armed kidnapping gangs.
The Air Force said in a statement it was investigating the Kaduna allegations but added that the airstrike was based on "credible intelligence" from numerous reliable sources and "confirmatory surveillance of the target area" before the strike.
Muhammad Hussaini, a resident, said the airstrike on Jika da Kolo community in Giwa local government area of Kaduna hit a local mosque instead of the intended armed gangs in the area.
The councillor representing the area, Abdullahi Ismail, confirmed the incident saying many people had died.
"They struck residents sitting close to the mosque, killing at least 24 innocent people," Hussaini told Reuters by phone.
"We can't deny the fact that bandits have taken charge of almost half of our village. But where the military fighter jet struck is a community where there was no presence of bandits," he added.
Another resident, Danlami Sale, said the strike had disfigured most of those killed, who were buried on Sunday.
The military said it was looking into exactly what had happened.
"The Nigeria Air Force is not taking these allegations lightly, and so a thorough investigation is in progress to ascertain the facts and properly inform the public in due course," spokesperson Group Captain Kabiru Ali said.
(Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja, Writing by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo, Editing by MacDonald Dzirutwe and Hugh Lawson)
