The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is the air branch of the Nigerian Armed Forces. It is the youngest branch of the Nigerian Armed Forces, established four years after the nation became independent. As at 2021, the air force is one of the largest in Africa, consisting of over 18,000 personnel. Some of its popular aircraft include the Chengdu F-7s, Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jets, JF-17 Thunder Block II, T129 Atak, Agusta Westland 109, Eurocopter EC135 and Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano.
Kaduna is a state in the northwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The state capital is its namesake, the city of Kaduna, which was the 8th largest city in the country as of 2006. Created in 1967 as North-Central State, which also encompassed the modern Katsina State, Kaduna State achieved its current borders in 1987. Kaduna State is the fourth largest and third most populous state in the country, Kaduna State is nicknamed the Centre of Learning, owing to the presence of numerous educational institutions of importance within the state such as Ahmadu Bello University, Nigerian Defence Academy, Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Kaduna Polytechnic, etc.
Zamfara is a state in northwestern Nigeria. The capital of Zamfara state is Gusau and its current governor is Dauda Lawal. Until 1996, the area was part of Sokoto State.
The 2009 Kunduz airstrike took place on Friday 4 September 2009 at roughly 2:30 am local time, 7 km (4.3 mi) southwest of Kunduz City, Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan. Responding to a call by German forces, an American F-15E fighter jet struck two fuel tankers, killing over 100 civilians in the attack.
Kaduna South is a Local Government Area in the Kaduna Metropolis of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Its headquarters is located in Makera. Other wards are Barnawa, Tudun Wada, Tudun Nupawa, Television, Kakuri, Unguwar Muazu, Kabala West, Sabon Gari, Badikko, Unguwar Sanusi and Kurmin Mashi. It has an area of about 46.2 km2. The postal code of the area is 800.
The Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa, better known as Ansaru and less commonly called al-Qaeda in the Lands Beyond the Sahel, is an Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist militant organisation originally based in the northeast of Nigeria. Originally a faction of Boko Haram, the group announced in 2012 that it had pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and was independent. Despite this, Ansaru and other Boko Haram factions continued to work closely together until the former increasingly declined and stopped its insurgent activities in 2013. The group was revived in 2020, and has been involved in the Nigerian bandit conflict.
On 17 January 2017, a Nigerian Air Force jet mistakenly bombed an internally displaced persons camp near the Cameroonian border in Rann, Borno State. They had believed it was a Boko Haram encampment. The bombing left at least 115 people dead, including six Red Cross aid workers, and left more than 100 injured.
Since the early 2000s, the United States has provided military support to the Transitional Federal Government and the Federal Government of Somalia in conflicts. U.S. military actions in Somalia date back to the 1990s; however, following the September 11th attacks, military action was justified as counterterrorism. The Obama and Trump administrations conducted drone and fighter aircraft strikes, advisory missions, and training; provided intelligence; and attacked al-Shabaab militants. Two U.S. special operations personnel, two contractors, one US Army soldier, and a CIA paramilitary officer have died during operations in Somalia.
The bandit conflict in northwest Nigeria is an ongoing conflict between the country's federal government and various gangs and ethnic militias. Starting in 2011, the insecurity remaining from the conflict between the Fulani and Hausa ethnic groups quickly allowed other criminal and jihadist elements to form in the region.
On 18 March 2019, during the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, the Talon Anvil special operations group, a Delta Force unit within the larger Task Force 9 of the United States Armed Forces, carried out an airstrike using an F-15E fighter-attack aircraft in Al-Baghuz Fawqani, Syria. The incident was concealed by the U.S. military, and was first reported on 14 November 2021 by The New York Times, who reported that the incident led to the deaths of 80 people, 64 of whom were civilians, which would make it one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State. A US military investigation in May 2022 concluded that the airstrike killed 52 ISIL fighters and 4 civilians and did not violate the laws of war.
In the late hours of 7 January 2022, the Ethiopian Air Force (ETAF) carried out an airstrike on a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) set up in Dedebit Elementary School, located in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Between 56 and 59 people were killed in the attack, and at least 30 others were left injured.
On 10 April 2022, a gang of bandits killed more than 150 people in a series of attacks in Plateau State, Nigeria. The attacks are linked to the ongoing Nigerian bandit conflict. About 70 people were also kidnapped in the attacks.
Events in the year 2023 in Nigeria.
On April 5, 2022, militants from Ansaru attacked a Nigerian military base in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna State, Nigeria. The attack killed seventeen soldiers and injured twenty-three others.
Events in the year 2024 in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Military has carried out a number of airstrikes that claimed civilian lives in the country, which the government and the military explained as being erroneous or targeted non-state actors. These airstrikes happened in a number of states battling with insecurity as a result of terrorists' and bandits' activities. The recent of such attacks happened in Tudun Biri village of Kaduna state on Sunday 3 December 2023, when two military airstrikes hit the villagers celebrating an Islamic Festival which resulted in the death of more 120 according to Amnesty International.
On May 26, 2020, over seventy-four people were killed on multiple attacks in villages in Sabon Birni LGA in Sokoto State, Nigeria. The attacks were a campaign of reprisal attacks targeting Garki, and came after the massacre of nineteen civilians by bandits in Sabon Birni a week prior.
On 25 December 2024, an airstrike by the Nigerian Armed Forces in Nigeria's northwest Sokoto State killed at least 10 people and injured many others. The military had been targeting the terror group Lakurawa in the villages of Gidan Sama and Rumtuwa, but civilians were caught in the crossfire.
Nigerian Air Force