US bombs target ISIL in Nigeria: What’s really going on?

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The United States has launched “powerful and deadly” strikes against groups it claims are affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) successful Nigeria, President Donald Trump said connected Thursday.

The unprecedented Christmas Day strikes came aft weeks of accusations from Trump and apical Republicans astir an alleged “Christian genocide” they accidental has been enabled by the Nigerian government. They correspond the archetypal known nonstop US subject involution successful the troubled, conflict-racked country.

What happened?

US President Donald Trump revealed successful a station connected his Truth Social level connected Thursday that the US had launched “numerous perfect” strikes connected “ISIS positions” successful northwest Nigeria.

“Tonight, astatine my absorption arsenic Commander successful Chief, the United States launched a almighty and deadly onslaught against ISIS Terrorist Scum successful Northwest Nigeria, who person been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, guiltless Christians, astatine levels not seen for galore years, and adjacent Centuries!…”

Trump did not disclose details astir which oregon however galore targets were hit, but helium added that they would proceed if the alleged slaughter of Christians did not stop.

The US Africa Command said successful a connection that an archetypal appraisal of the strikes had revealed “multiple ISIS terrorists were killed successful the ISIS camps”.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth thanked Nigeria for cooperating with the strikes. The (US) “is ever ready, truthful ISIS recovered retired contiguous – connected Christmas. More to come…,” helium posted connected societal media level X.

In different station connected X, the US Defense Department shared a video showing what appeared to beryllium the infinitesimal a weaponry was fired from a US warship successful an unmarked location. Conflict expert Murtala Abdullahi from Nigeria’s Office for Strategic Preparedness and Resilience successful Abuja, who tracks aerial enactment successful Nigeria, said it was apt that the US had launched missiles from a presumption successful the Gulf of Guinea.

In a connection connected Friday morning, Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed the attacks and said they targeted elements based successful the northwest of the country.

Nigerian authorities person vehemently denied allegations of a “Christian genocide”, and said the strikes had been carried retired wrong an planetary practice model that allows the sharing of quality and strategical coordination with the US and others, “consistent with planetary law, communal respect for sovereignty and shared commitments to determination and planetary security”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Tuggar said some parties intimately cooperated connected the onslaught and that the US Secretary of State had called him earlier the strikes were launched. Tuggar, however, added that Nigeria faces a analyzable information situation that is besides affecting different countries successful the region, and that the strikes were not religion-based.

“It is simply a determination conflict, it is not a Nigeria Christian-Muslim conflict,” helium said.

What bash we cognize astir the targets?

At slightest 1 municipality – Jabo successful Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto State – was confirmed to person been hit, expert Adamu said. Photos shared connected societal media by residents determination look to corroborate the location, with immoderate posting what look to beryllium fragments of a weaponry and others posting videos of a ample occurrence connected a farm. The accusation could not beryllium independently verified by Al Jazeera.

“There were nary casualties arsenic of this morning,” Adamu said, adding that it’s unclear wherefore Jabo was chosen, arsenic determination are nary known ISIL-linked panic cells there.

Locals connected societal media besides questioned wherefore their municipality had been targeted.

A spokesperson for the Nigerian Foreign Ministry told Al Jazeera that the strikes had been carried retired based connected quality provided by Nigeria.

“The aerial strikes covered a precise area, and what radical are seeing are fragments that fell successful Jabo,” helium said.

Is ISIL operating successful Nigeria?

Yes, astir six ideological equipped groups beryllium successful Nigeria, each of them linked to either ISIL (ISIS) oregon al-Qaeda.

They person targeted some Christian and Muslim communities successful their areas of cognition successful the country’s predominantly Muslim northeast and northwest regions.

The strikes connected Thursday apt targeted a faction called Lakurawa, which has precocious emerged, and whose illustration is inactive not afloat known.

Here are immoderate of the factions explained:

Boko Haram: The astir recognised equipped radical is Boko Haram, which is based successful Borno State, northeast Nigeria.

The radical gained planetary notoriety for kidnapping 300 schoolhouse girls from their dormitory successful Chibok, Borno State, nether the enactment of Ibrahim Shekau successful 2014.

It was astir progressive betwixt 2012 and 2015. At the tallness of its activities, the radical targeted subject installations and civilians astir Borno and the neighbouring Yobe and Adamawa states. It besides dispersed crossed porous borders into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Boko Haram utilized termination bombing and wide kidnapping tactics against some Christian and Muslim communities, attacking churches and mosques alike. Its main hideout was the Sambisa Forest successful Borno, but it besides controlled ample swaths of agrarian territory wherever it taxed locals and operated arsenic a government.

At slightest 30,000 radical died, and millions were displaced astatine the tallness of Boko Haram’s operations. The radical has been mostly deflated by infighting and unit from the Nigerian military. Since 2015, it has mislaid overmuch of the territory it controlled.

ISWAP: The ISIL-affiliate successful West Africa Province (ISWAP) broke distant from Boko Haram successful 2016 pursuing disagreements betwixt apical subject leaders. The 2 groups person maintained a convulsive rivalry.

ISWAP is believed to person betwixt 8,000 and 12,000 fighters, according to the United Nations. It is presently progressive astir the Lake Chad basin country successful northeast Nigeria, and has progressive cells successful the northwest of the country.

It controls section communities, wherever it attempts to triumph enactment by providing basal amenities portion taxing section farmers and fishermen.

Lakurawa: A recently emerged faction, the radical operates successful distant parts of the country’s northwest Sokoto State, including successful the Tangaza, Gudu, Illela, Binji and Silame section governments. It is besides contiguous successful northwest Zamfara and Kebbi states.

Jabo, which is located successful Sokoto and was struck connected Thursday, is known for harbouring bandits, but analysts accidental there’s nary beardown beingness of Lakurawa oregon different ISIL cells successful the town.

Nigerian officials confirmed the group’s beingness successful November 2024 and designated it a panic radical successful January.

Before its emergence, ragtag bandit groups had been targeting distant communities successful Sokoto and neighbouring Zamfara. In 2017, section leaders invited equipped fighters from Mali and Niger, mostly from the Fulani pastoral taste group, to combat the bandits, arsenic authorities beingness was failing to deter them, according to researchers James Barnett and Vincent Foucher. However, immoderate of the arriving fighters were affiliated with equipped groups operating successful Niger and Mali, including the ISIL successful Sahel Province (ISSP), besides known arsenic Islamic State Greater Sahara (ISGS).

By 2018, the fighters had moved connected from rescuing victims from bandits to enforcing Islamic instrumentality connected villages.

Lakurawa elements person since grown bolder and much lethal successful caller years, targeting information outposts.

Researchers bash not judge determination is simply a single, homogenous Lakurawa group, but suggest that galore factions are being clumped unneurotic by the government, perchance hampering an effectual response. Some besides accidental the group’s alllegiance could beryllium to al-Qaeda, alternatively than ISIL.

In 2024, a United Nations Security Council study confirmed the beingness of ISGS affiliates successful northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State. It’s unclear to what grade ISWAP and Lakurawa coordinate.

Why is the Trump medication targeting Nigeria now?

President Trump maintains that the US strikes person been carried retired to support Christian communities successful Nigeria.

United States Senator Ted Cruz archetypal accused Nigeria’s authorities of enabling a “massacre” against Christians successful October 2025, citing a rising fig of attacks against the assemblage successful the country’s cardinal Middle Belt region, which is abstracted from the unit successful the north. He claimed, without proof, that 50,000 Christians had been killed since 2009. In September, helium introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act which, if it passes Congress, would authorisation Nigerian officials seen arsenic complicit successful the killings of Christians.

Cruz was echoing claims from wrong the Christian governmental close successful the US of a Christian genocide successful Nigeria for the past fewer years.

Then, successful November, Trump besides accused Nigeria of a Christian genocide, referring to ISIL, and appearing to nexus the 2 abstracted issues. He besides referred to Nigeria arsenic a “Country of National Concern”.

But portion Cruz and different far-right US voices identified the Middle Belt portion of Nigeria arsenic the tract of the alleged “Christian genocide”, the US strikes connected Thursday targeted a municipality successful Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. Jabo is simply a mostly Muslim town, and Muslim communities determination person been the targets of bandits who kidnap them for ransom.

What is truly happening successful Nigeria?

The concern successful Nigeria is acold much analyzable than has been presented by the Trump administration, which appears to conflate 2 abstracted issues.

Nigeria is simply a immense state of 200 cardinal radical from much than 250 taste groups. It suffers not conscionable astatine the hands of the ideological equipped groups but besides arsenic a effect of ethnoreligious violence.

The fertile Middle Belt portion of the country, which Cruz referred to, has agelong been a hotbed of unit betwixt predominantly Muslim herders from the bulk Fulani taste radical and Christian farming communities from antithetic number taste groups who person repeatedly clashed implicit onshore and h2o resources.

The unit has grown successful standard and weaponry implicit the past fewer years, and has mostly targeted Christian farming communities.

The farmers accidental herder groups onslaught their communities successful lethal raids utilizing blase weapons, pain full villages to the crushed and massacre civilians. They besides people infrastructure similar schools, clinics, atom reserves, churches and boreholes.

In May, Amnesty International reported that adjacent to 10,000 radical had been killed since 2023, including children, successful the worst-affected states of Benue and Plateau, and that much than 500,000 radical person been displaced.

Nigeria’s authorities has agelong termed this a “local farmer-herdman crisis”, but the affected communities cull this classification, saying it oversimplifies the occupation and means an inadequate response. One assemblage person successful Benue called caller killings a “full-scale genocidal penetration and land-grabbing run by herder terrorists and bandits”.

How overmuch of a accidental did Nigeria person successful the US strikes?

The Nigerian Foreign Ministry said the strikes had been carried retired with the consent of Nigeria. Locally, however, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has travel nether occurrence from absorption politicians who accidental the US strikes correspond a usurpation of the country’s sovereignty.

“Judging by the quality of the confirmed onslaught connected a colony successful Sokoto, it is wide that the US President nether whose authorization this cognition occurred neither understands nor genuinely cares astir Nigeria oregon Nigerians,” Omoyele Sowore, a erstwhile statesmanlike campaigner and person of the African Action Congress, said successful a connection connected X.

“It is profoundly troubling that Nigeria [Africa’s astir populous nation] lacks the susceptible and sovereign enactment required to support its radical and its territory.”

Analyst Owolade told Al Jazeera it is improbable that the US would motorboat strikes without Nigeria’s greenish light, but pointed retired that the mode the US has referred to the practice is rather antithetic from however Nigeria is wording it.

“This suggests a cooperative but unequal partnership, shaped by Nigeria’s dependence connected outer quality and subject capacity, and the US’s tendency to framework the hostility successful Nigeria arsenic genocide against Christians and task counter-ISIS resoluteness successful West Africa,” helium said.

What’s the past of US-Nigeria information collaboration?

The US has cooperated with Nigeria and different West African countries to combat the determination menace of equipped groups, chiefly done grooming and weapons sales. This is the archetypal clip the US has straight conducted aerial strikes successful Nigeria, however.

During the highest of the Boko Haram crisis, the US intensified grooming practice and supported Nigeria with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, particularly nether the associated Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF). The radical includes Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin, which are each connected by Lake Chad, and which are each experiencing equipped incursions.

However, the associated task unit has begun to interruption down. Niger’s subject authorities has been astatine likelihood with Nigeria since June 2023, erstwhile the subject determination seized power. Niger is besides astatine likelihood with the US and different Western partners similar France. In August 2024, the US subject began withdrawing from its important bases successful the country, from wherever it monitored equipped groups successful the Sahel.

Niger pulled retired of the MNJTF successful April, and Chad is threatening to withdraw. Analysts from the Institute for Security Studies nexus the coalition’s breakdown to accrued equipped radical enactment crossed the region.

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