Background
The Nigerian government has been combating jihadist groups for several years, including Boko Haram and its Islamic State-linked splinter groups. [7] Jihadist groups in Nigeria's northeast, the center of the insurgency, killed tens of thousands of Nigerians from 2016 to 2025. [8]
According to Nigeria's military, Lakurawa became more active on the Nigerian side of the border with Niger following the 2023 Niger coup, which impacted the countries' joint border operations. [1] Lakurawa had been formed in 2017 as an anti-bandit force initially being welcomed into villages; however, it became increasingly oppressive. It controls territories in Sokoto and Kebbi states. [1]
In November 2025, the United States Africa Command drafted plans to strike at militant compounds in northern Nigeria. [9] Later in November, 25 schoolgirls were abducted from a Catholic school in Kebbi state [10] and 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were kidnapped at another Catholic school in Niger state. [11] US president Donald Trump said that Christians in Nigeria were facing an "existential threat"; locals and experts emphasized that Nigerians of all faiths are targets of violence. [12]
Strikes
Early on 26 December 2025, [13] the US conducted airstrikes which it said were against Islamic State (IS) militants in northwest Nigeria. According to the US, the strikes were approved by and in coordination with the Nigerian government, and killed "multiple" Islamic State militants. [14] AFRICOM said that the strikes focused on targets in Sokoto State. [15] The strikes were conducted by a US Navy warship, likely the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Paul Ignatius, [16] [17] in the Gulf of Guinea. A US defense official told The New York Times the strikes involved over a dozen Tomahawk missiles targeting two IS camps. [8]
Nigerian information minister Mohammed Idris Malagi said that the operation took place on 26 December between 00:12 and 01:30 WAT, and targeted two prominent IS sites in the Bauni forest in Tangaza. Additionally, he said that 16 munitions were fired by MQ-9 Reaper drones at fighters attempting to infiltrate Nigeria from the Sahel. Malagi added that debris from munitions mistakenly hit Jabo and Offa, but caused no civilian casualties. [13] According to Isa Salihu Bashir, the chairman of Tangaza, strikes hit Lakurawa camps, killing many fighters and forcing others to flee. [7] In Jabo, Tambuwal, farmland was destroyed. [18] [3] [19] In Offa, former state official Tajudeen Alabi told the BBC that "about five structures" were destroyed, with some injuries but no deaths. [20]
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the strikes were related to stopping the killings of Christians in Nigeria. [21] Conversely, the Nigerian government stated that the strikes were not intended to protect any specific religions. [22]
The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement that said "precision hits" had been made and that the country's authorities remained "engaged in structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States of America, in addressing the persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism". [23] [24] The Nigerian Armed Forces said the strikes were jointly conducted with approval from the government, and came after "credible intelligence and careful operational planning" to minimize collateral damage. [25]
Targets
According to the FDD, the missile strikes likely targeted camps of the Islamic State's Sahel Province (ISSP) in northwestern Nigeria, the main IS affiliate responsible for operations across the Sahel region, as opposed to the Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP), the largest IS affiliate active in Nigeria, which is based in northeastern Nigeria. The FDD added that the attack target was indicative of the inroads that ISSP had made in Nigeria. [26]
A spokesperson for Nigerian president Bola Tinubu told Agence France-Presse that the strikes targeted "ISIS, Lakurawa and bandits", saying that IS supplied and trained Lakurawa and bandits through the Sahel. He noted that the strikes hit an area with a historic Lakurawa and bandit presence, and that US intelligence had detected an influx of IS fighters there from the Sahel. [2]
Analysis
When the strikes were originally proposed in November 2025, Judd Devermont, former US president Joe Biden's national security advisor for African affairs, criticized the Trump administration stating that instability in Nigeria "will not be reversed overnight by an influx of U.S. resources". [27]
Nigeria's Minister of Defence Christopher Musa said that military intervention would only solve 30% of the conflict, with 70% depending on good governance, notably addressing poor state capacity in the north. The Associated Press reported that experts saw the strikes as providing "crucial help" for Nigeria's security forces which are "overstretched" and "outgunned". [1]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United States 
United States Navy 
United States Air Force 
Nigerian Armed Forces [3] 
