The United States airstrikes that targeted Islamic State militants in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday, marked a major escalation in an offensive that Nigeria’s overstretched military has struggled with for years.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media that the “powerful and deadly” strikes in Sokoto state were carried out against Islamic State militants “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.” Residents and security analysts have said Nigeria’s security crisis affects both Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north.

Nigeria, which is battling multiple armed groups, said the U.S. strikes were part of an exchange of intelligence and strategic coordination between the two countries.

The Associated Press could not confirm the extent of the strikes’ impact. U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X about the airstrikes, said: “More to come…”

The armed groups in Africa’s most populous country include at least two affiliated with the Islamic State — an offshoot of the Boko Haram extremist group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province in the northeast, and the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) known locally as Lakurawa and prominent in the northwest.

Although officials did not say exactly which group was targeted, security analysts said the target, if indeed against Islamic State militants, was likely members of Lakurawa, which became more lethal in border states like Sokoto and Kebbi in the last year, often targeting remote communities and security forces.

The Nigerian military has said in the past that the group has roots in neighbouring Niger and that it became more active in Nigeria’s border communities following a 2023 military coup. That coup resulted in fractured relations between Nigeria and Niger, and affected their multinational military operations along the porous border.

Multiple analysts have said Lakurawa has been active in northwest Nigeria since around 2017 when it was invited by traditional authorities in Sokoto to protect their communities from bandit groups.

The militants, however, “overstayed their welcome, clashing with some of the community leaders … and enforcing a harsh interpretation of sharia law that alienated much of the rural population,” according to James Barnett, an Africa researcher with the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

“Communities now openly say that Lakurawa are more oppressive and dangerous than the bandits they claim to protect them from,” according to Malik Samuel, a Nigerian security researcher with Good Governance Africa.

Lakurawa controls territories in Sokoto and Kebbi states, and has become known for killings, kidnapping, rape and armed robbery, Samuel said.

But some of the attacks blamed on Lakurawa are by the Islamic State Sahel Province, which has expanded from Niger’s Dosso region to northwestern Nigeria, according to the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

“ISSP has maintained a low profile, operating covertly to infiltrate and entrench itself along the Niger-Nigeria border, and is now also expanding its operations toward the Beninese border,” the project said in a recent report.

The security woes are more of a governance problem than a military one.

Motives for attacks differ but the gangs are often driven by the near absence of a state and security presence in conflict hot spots, making recruitment easy. Those hot spots, data show, have some of the country’s highest levels of poverty, hunger and lack of jobs.

Nigeria’s Minister of Defence Christopher Musa once said in his past capacity as the defence chief that military action is only 30% of what is needed to fix the country’s security crisis, while the remaining 70% depends on good governance.

“The absence of the state in remote communities is making it easy for non-state actors to come in and present themselves to the people as the best alternative government,” said Samuel.

Thursday’s U.S. strikes were seen as crucial help for Nigeria’s security forces, which are often overstretched and outgunned as they fight multiple security crises across different regions.

In states like Sokoto, the military often carries out airstrikes targeting militant hideouts and Nigeria has embarked on mass recruitment of security forces.

But analysts say military operations targeting the gangs are not usually sustained and the militants easily move on motorcycles to new locations through vast forests that connect several states in the north.

They also often use hostages — including schoolchildren — as cover, making airstrikes difficult. (BusinessDay)

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