Armed gangs known as "bandits" have taken root across Nigeria's rural hinterlands amid poverty and government neglect. They raid, loot and burn villages, exact taxes, and conduct kidnappings for ransom.

On Tuesday, Nigerian air and ground troops "foiled an attempted bandit attack, launching air strikes and shootouts" in the northwestern state of Niger, according to the report, which was produced by a private conflict monitor.

It added that "at least 95 bandits" were killed in the clash, which occurred near the villages of Warari and Ragada in the Rijau local government area.

The Nigerian military put out a statement about the clash Wednesday, saying that forces "engaged terrorists in a firefight, neutralizing several."

One soldier was killed, it said.

Tuesday's attack follows a slew of battles where the Nigerian military -- which has in the past has been quick to publicise and sometimes exaggerate its gains -- has kept relatively mum on apparent victories where scores of bandits were killed.

An intelligence source told AFP the military was changing tack after realising publicising their gains was keeping jihadists and bandits abreast of their operations.

The army declined to comment.

- Conflict spreading -

Nigeria's myriad bandit gangs maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, in unrest that evolved from clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources into a broader conflict across the sparsely governed countryside.

Since 2011, as arms trafficking increased and the wider Sahel fell into turmoil, organised armed gangs formed, with cattle rustling and kidnapping becoming huge moneymakers in the largely impoverished northwest.

Groups also levy taxes on farmers and artisanal miners.

Violence has spread in recent years from its heartland in the northwest -- where analysts say some gains have been made by the military recently -- into north-central Nigeria, where observers say the situation is getting worse.

Increasing cooperation between the criminal gangs, who are primarily motivated by financial gains, and jihadists -- who are waging a separate, 16-year-old-armed insurrection in the northeast -- has seen attacks worsen.

Despite recent gains in the northwest, the military remains overstretched. While improved cooperation between the army and air force has aided the fight, analysts say, airstrikes have also killed hundreds of civilians.

Between 2018 and 2023, there were more deaths from bandits than there were from jihadist groups, according to figures from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based monitor.

Last week motorcycle-riding bandits rounded up a group of farmers working their fields outside Jangebe village in Zamfara state, killing nine and kidnapping around 15 others, local residents told AFP.

Earlier this month, Nigerian soldiers killed at least 150 bandits in an ambush in northwestern Kebbi state, a local official said.