TERRORISMU.S.–Nigeria Counter-Terror Cooperation
The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) is leveraging U.S. intelligence capabilities to help the largely Nigeria-led ground forces with advanced surveillance, intelligence analysis, and joint planning in the fight against Islamist terrorists.
The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) on 16 May 2026 stated that in a joint campaign with Nigerian forces in north-eastern Nigeria, Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, head of ISIS global operations, along with other senior ISIS terrorists, were killed.[i] Leveraging US intelligence capabilities, the largely Nigeria-led ground forces benefitted from American advanced surveillance, intelligence analysis and joint planning. AFRICOM Commander Gen. Dagvin Anderson had earlier in January 2026 posited that this kind of collaboration could be a model for future security cooperation in Africa.[ii]
This new approach has proven particularly effective in the Lake Chad basin, where violent extremist organizations make full use of the treacherous terrain and porous international borders to carry out their attacks. In these operational environments, intelligence fusion and coordinated planning help improve situational awareness, strengthen operational decision-making, and enhance partner-state capacity-building without requiring a longer or prolonged foreign military deployment. Taken together, these developments suggest that intelligence has evolved from providing a supporting role into a key operational imperative in contemporary counter-terrorism cooperation.
The US and Nigeria had launched a joint counter-terrorism operation in late December last year, which targeted Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), Boko Haram, and other armed bandit groups operating in the region. US forces, in coordination with Nigerian authorities, conducted strikes against ISWAP in Sokoto State, Nigeria, on Christmas Day of 2025.[iii] This was followed by a major joint military offensive in north-eastern Nigeria in May 2026. Combining Special Forces raids and several rounds of airstrikes, the operations killed many jihadists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure in the region.[iv]
The vaunted success of the present phase of US–Nigeria joint operations ironically came in the wake of tensions between the two countries. US Senator Ted Cruz raised alarm over what he characterized as an ongoing “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.[v] However, Gimba Kakanda, Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Research and Analytics, argued that this characterization oversimplified a far more complex issue, rooted in ethnic rivalries, land disputes, and resource competition rather than deliberate religious persecution.[vi] Notably, Boko Haram and ISWAP victims have included both Christians and Muslims. In his response, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu noted that the security challenges facing his country did not constitute a war against any particular religion. He countered that “portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality”.[vii]
