Nigeria likely signals more strikes in ‘joint’ US operations | News24

US President Donald Trump, accompanied by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

• Nigeria and the US carried out joint precision strikes on ISIS-linked militants in northwestern Nigeria, signaling ongoing operations.
• The strikes follow diplomatic disputes over US claims of Christian persecution, which Nigeria and analysts reject.
• Local residents were shocked by the attacks as no recent militant activity or Lakurawa presence had been observed in the target area.

The West African country faces multiple interconnected security crises in the north, where jihadists have waged an insurgency in the northeast since 2009, and armed “bandit gangs” invade villages and stage kidnappings in the northwest.

The US attacks come after Abuja and Washington were embroiled in a diplomatic dispute over what Trump characterized as the mass murder of Christians amid Nigeria’s numerous armed conflicts.

The Nigerian military said in a statement that its forces, in coordination with the United States, carried out “precise strike operations against identified foreign ISIS-affiliated elements” in northwestern Nigeria.

Washington’s framing of the violence as “Christian persecution” has been rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts, but has nevertheless resulted in greater security coordination.

“It is Nigeria that provided the intelligence,” Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar told Channels TV, saying he was on the phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio before the bombing.

Asked if there would be more strikes, Tuggar said: “It’s an ongoing thing and we are working with the US. We are also working with other countries.”

Objectives unclear

The Defense Department’s U.S. Africa Command, using an acronym for Islamic State, said “several ISIS terrorists” were killed in an attack in the northwestern state of Sokoto.

U.S. defense officials later posted video of what appeared to be the nighttime launch of a missile from the deck of a battleship flying the U.S. flag.

Residents of remote villages in Sokoto state, which borders junta-ruled Niger, said they were shocked by the blasts.

“We heard a loud explosion that shook the whole city, and everyone was scared,” said Haruna Kallah, a resident of Jabo, about 100 kilometers from the capital Sokoto in Tambuwal district.

He said:

“But we later found out that it was a US drone strike that took us by surprise because this area has never been a Lakurawa enclave and we have never had any attacks in the last two years.”

It remains unclear which of Nigeria’s numerous armed groups were targeted.

Nigerian jihadist groups are mainly concentrated in the northeast, but have also reached the northwest.

Investigators recently linked some members of an armed group known as Lakurawa – the main jihadist group in Sokoto State – to the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mainly active in neighboring Niger and Mali.

READ | ‘The whole city shook’: Nigerians surprised by US strikes

Other analysts have disputed these links, although research on Lakurawa is complicated as the term has been used to describe various armed fighters in the northwest.

Those described as Lakurawa are also reportedly linked to an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a rival group to ISSP.

Although Abuja has welcomed the strikes, “I don’t think Trump would have accepted a ‘no’ from Nigeria,” said Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based researcher for Good Governance Africa, an NGO.

Amid the diplomatic pressure, Nigerian authorities are keen to be seen as partners with the US, Samuel told AFP, even though “both perpetrators and victims in the northwest are predominantly Muslim”.

Tuggar said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu “gave the green light” for the strikes.

The Foreign Secretary added: “It must be made clear that this is a joint operation, and that it is not against any religion, nor simply in the name of one religion or another.”