The Nigeria Military signals more strikes in “Joint United States operation”.

 

Nigeria on Friday 26th December 2025 signaled more strikes to befall jihadist groups where expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by the United States forces against militants in the northern part of the country, which it said it was a joint military operation.

Nigeria faces multiple interlinked security crises especially in the Northern part of the country, where jihadists have been waging an insurgency in the northeast since 2009 and armed “bandit” gangs raid  villages and stage kidnapping in the northwest.

The United States strike came after Abuja and Washington were locked in a diplomatic dispute over what Trump characterized as the mass killing of Christians amid Nigeria’s myriad armed conflicts.

Nigeria’s military said in a statement that its forces, in collaboration with the US conducted a precision strike operations against identified foreign ISIS-linked elements” in northwest Nigeria.

Washington’s framing of the violence as amounting to Christian “persecutions” is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts, but has nonetheless resulted in increased security coordination in the country.

“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence”, Tuggar Usuf, Nigerias foreign minister, told broadcaster Channel Tv, saying he was on the phone with US state secretary Marco Rubio ahead of the Bombardment.

When asked if they would be more strikes, Usuf Tuggar said. “It is an ongoing thing, and we are working with the US. We are working with other countries as well”.

The department of Defense’s US Africa command, using an acronym for the Islamic state group, said “multiple ISIS terrorists” were killed in an attack in the northwestern Sokoto state.

US defense officials later  posted videos of what happened to be the night time launch of a misile from the deck of a battleship flying the United States flag.

Residents of some villages In Sokoto state which boarders junta-ruled Niger, said they were shocked by the blasts.

“We heard a loud explosion which shocked the entire town and everyone was scared”, said Kallah Harunaa, a resident of Jabo, some 100 kilometers from the Sokoto state capital in Tambuwal district.

“Initially, we thought that it was an attack by Lakurawa (an armed group linked to ISIS in the Sahel)”, he said. “But later discovered that it was a United State drone attacks in the last two years”.

Which of the Nigeria’s myriad armed groups were targeted still remains unclear.Nigeria’s jihadist groups are mostly concentrated in the Northeast but have also affected the northwest.

Researchers have recently linked some members from armed group known as Lakurawa - The main jihadist group located in sokoto state - to Islamic state Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mostly active in neighboring Mali and Niger.

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

Those who were described as Lakurawa also have links to al-Qaeda affiliated group for the support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a rival group to ISSP.

While FCT Abuja had welcomed the strikes, “ I think Trump would have not accepted a ‘NO’ from Nigeria,” said Samuel Malik, a researcher based in Abuja for good governance Africa, a Non Governmental Organization NGO.

The Nigeria Authorities are seen to be cooperating with the United States amid the diplomatic pressure, Samuel told AFP, even though “both the perpetrators and victims in the northwest are overwhelmingly Muslims”.

The Foreign Minister further said that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu approved the go-ahead of the strikes.

Ministers Tugger also stated that “It must be made known and clear that it is a Joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion, neither is it in the name of one religion or the other”.